My Love for Botanical Pigments

As an artist, I've always loved using things I can find in my own environment to make art - pine cones and small stones, twigs and branches - but I've also always had a love for painting. I married the two when I started making botanical inks, I then moved onto pigment and paint.

I started foraging for color with what was growing around me. Naturally, as a farmer I started to explore growing pigments as well. That's where the dream of Blue Craft Farm began.

There's some debate about botanical pigments and whether they should be sold, either as palettes or as art made from them, because ultimately they're not lightfast. They're not going to last hundreds of years in a museum or even a full lifetime in somebody's home without change. But not all art is created to be in a museum or for sale.

I use these paints in all of my own work, and I do sell my art. I use high quality cotton watercolor paper to get the most bold and longest lasting colors from my paint and I scan my pieces soon after they are finished to preserve their original state. I use the scans for giclee prints for sale. If someone is interested in buying an original piece, I spray it with protectant so it will last as long as possible and advise them not to hang it in a sunny window. I also give them a full-sized giclee print so they can enjoy the dynamic nature of the original while still preserving the colors.

For me, the dynamic nature of the paint is not a drawback but a curiosity. An evolving piece. I find it interesting to see how they change the piece as they shift over the years. I make sure to choose plants with the best lightfastness, and I've experimented with many different plants as well as different processes for extraction. Many paints made from plants only last days or hours on the page after exposure to sunlight. Mine last much longer than that, and if hung under normal conditions should take many years to fade or change completely.

I think the colors that I make have a natural innate harmony that is worth exploring. It attaches them together on the page. They look like they live in the same world, or even the same room.

I've grown food for over 20 years and nourished the body that way. This is a different type of nourishment. The farm itself and the sustainability of making paints this way is also important to me. I love seeing all the insects, birds, and other toads living in the tiny ecosystem I've created with this farm.

Tea, Coffee, Cochineal, Iron Weed, Golden Rod, Elderberry, Willow Ink

Indigo, Elderberry, Walnut, Willow Ink, Daucus Carrot, Rudebekia, Golden Rod, Weld, Cochineal, Copper Oxide Ink, Madder Root

Copper Oxide Ink, Indigo, Golden Rod, Rudebekia, Elderberry, Cochineal, Coreopsis, Chamomile

Crowned Toad: Golden Rod, Madder Root, Indigo, Elderberry, Cochineal, Tea & Coreopsis

Tea, Cochineal, Weld, Golden Rod, Indigo, Rudebekia, Yarrow

Currently on my Easel