Amber Dusick

Make Pigment from Rabbit Buckthorn Urine (blue spots in the snow)

2021-03-20T14:47:02-07:00

Walking in the woods a couple months ago, I noticed blue rabbit urine spots on the snow. To make a long story short, rabbits start eating buckthorn bark in late winter which makes their urine turn a pretty blue color.

Pretty Blue Rabbit Pee

The entire woods seemed to be dotted with blue. So like any good pigment nerd I wondered, "Can I extract the pigment from this?" And so I did.

Rabbit Nibbled

I ran back to the house, grabbed a jar and a plastic spoon and simply collected spoonfuls of the blue snow into a jar. There is nothing weird about this, right?

Oh, you know, just a mason jar of blue rabbit pee.

I also noticed lots of dried, old berries still on the buckthorns so I collected a handful of those too, to compare pigments.

Winter buckthorn berries.

By the time I got the jar back into the house, the snow in the jar started to melt and the blue was already changing into green.

Melting from blue to green.

So I tossed the dried berries in a separate jar in a tiny bit of hot water and let those soak a bit to release their color before straining off and gathered stuff to make a lake pigment out of these with alum and washing soda. Tiny, tiny amounts of each since I had only an inch of liquid in the jar - it amounted to less than a 1/2 teaspoon of alum and basically a pinch of washing soda.

Buckthorn winter berry (left) and buckthorn rabbit urine (right).

Buckthorn winter berry (bottom) and buckthorn rabbit urine (top).

The rabbit filtered buckthorn (ha) was certainly a more bluish green, but a green nonetheless. Not the vibrant blue it appears to be on the snow. Course maybe some pH tweaking could have nudged this a bit but my sample was so tiny I didn't experiment further.

Rabbit buckthorn pee (left) and winter buckthorn berries (right).

Still, a lovely green for a plant pigment. This extracting a pigment through the urine of an animal reminds me of Indian yellow, supposedly was once made from the urine of cows fed only mango leaves, which sounds like a bummer for those cows. (No rabbit harmed in the collecting of their urine!)

So the big question (for me) of course is, how lightfast is this pigment? Did filtering buckthorn through a rabbit somehow make it even more magically stable? I doubted it, since I haven't heard of anyone ever making rabbit urine pigment before.

People on the internet say buckthorn berry pigments are stable and they are a bit better than some other plant pigments. BUT, I have never found buckthorn to last past the 4 weeks in a sunny window amount of time without fade so I don't use it for my wooden work.

Once again, there are plenty of permanently lightfast rock and mineral based greens (as well as mixing maya blue indigo with yellow ochre) that I prefer to use instead. However, on wool yarn, I have had fairly decent results with buckthorn berry dyes.

I am not sure anyone else will want to dye yarn with blue rabbit urine snow, but hey, you never know. So let's see if it would be worth it...

Junk mail lightfastness set up. Placed in sunny window for 3 weeks.

3 weeks in a sunny window.

Sadly, the results for the rabbit urine buckthorn are worse than the buckthorn berries. Pretty faded after 3 weeks. I mean, it's not too bad, I have certainly seen worse, but I didn't discover any hidden magic here either.

As always, a fun experiment.

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As I have mentioned, I've closed comments on this blog due to getting slammed with spam comments. You can connect with me via instagram Amber_Dusick.

A Circle of Trees Art Installation 2021

2021-02-27T11:23:00-08:00

My art is made of trees.

For each piece of wooden artwork I sell this year, I am planting a tree.

A circle of trees.

A wish, a prayer, a hope for the future.

The wood I use, the rocks and plants I use for colors, even the plant resins I use for binders - they are all from the earth. This circle of trees puts something back.

Each tree within the circle connects to each person who supports my art. This circle of trees is a visual representation of a community supporting art.

It is a habitat and food source for animals and a natural art installation. The circle sequesters carbon and makes oxygen. This circle of trees will benefit living things long after I am gone.

This is the kind of legacy I want to leave behind. It is the most meaningful art project I have ever done.

Will it save the planet, clean the oceans and solve all the problems? No. But I firmly believe that caring for our own little corner of the world in whatever way we are able to has impact.

More details to come as the ground thaws and planting can begin. I will be planting the trees myself, using permaculture practices in guilds with beneficial companion shrubs and herbs.

Animal Messenger Series

2021-02-26T13:24:00-08:00

I have been working on my latest collection called Animal Messenger and it released today! It has been in the works for 4 months and this is right on target for the 3-4 collection releases each year.

As always, the wood is FSC certified or reclaimed (I used wood from some old wine crates in this collection) and all the colors are naturally sourced by me. Hand gathered rocks, soil and clay and home grown plants are the source of all colors.

(By the way, since I rarely update here, you can sign up for my newsletter - where I let everyone know (ahead of time) the date and time of the collection release.)

Since I post everything over on Instagram, it has been fascinating to see what pieces people respond to. Like everything I have ever done, I can almost never tell which things will make an impression. And honestly, that is good. I intentionally avoid getting into that mindset of making things that I think others may like. Following that externally focused creative path has always led to eventual burnout and quitting. It has to come from within. The only way to continue in a sustainable way is to make things that I sincerely enjoy making and feel driven to make, regardless of outer influence.

It is difficult to do. The feedback I received on one particular piece has been so strong that it is hard to resist the urge to make ten more similar ones. But do I WANT to? Meaning, would I want to make ten more similar ones even if the response wasn't so overwhelmingly positive? No, I wouldn't. This is something I have to be mindful of, it is almost impossible to not get caught up in what other people want more of.

Still, there is that sweet spot, isn't there? That place where you allow yourself to express what your soul needs to get out and then, miraculously, people also connect to the work. Actually, I think work made this way is always more powerful.

There are 14 pieces in this series and they are available in the shop.

Next up, I plan to organize my studio space. Again. It is a never ending transformation, isn't it? Now that I have been back at this for a year, I have a much better idea of the flow of work and where I need more room.

I'll also shortly be sharing my space with seedlings - almost time to start garden seeds for spring - so that entire shelving unit needs to be cleared off.

Soon I'll be in the midst of herbs and dyes and collecting rocks for pigments. But for now, the snow is beautiful and the fireplace is warm.

Solanum Melanocerasum Dye Lightfastness Tests, Mead & Jam

2021-02-24T04:37:00-08:00

Solanum melanocerasum (also known as garden huckleberries or wonderberries) is a prolific plant that takes work and patience to make it, uh, taste good, but with a little effort, it is a wonderful berry to have in the garden. It makes an interesting dye plant, though as I have mentioned, I rarely plant things just for dye, with the exception of indigo and madder.

These are not ripe berries. Look away. Do not even think of picking. When ripe, the berries are dull, soft, some starting to wrinkle and all the leaves have fallen off the plant. It takes LOADS of patience to pick these at the right time. For me, it is after first frost. I made up a rhyme for these: "Hard with shine, still needs time. Soft and dull, pick a pail full."

Thing is, you need to to a baking soda boil on these before you do anything with them. I used about 1/4 cup of baking soda and boiled them for a few minutes and then drained and rinsed. When processed like this and cooked, the berries have a blueberry flavor.

With them, we made the most beautiful mead ever:

And the most beautiful jam ever:

The color! Okay, onto extracting pigment. Here are lake pigments drying:

Wow, that color.

Once dried and ground finely, I added gum arabic and honey:

And then applied it to paper and wood to test the lightfastness.

I knew going in that this wouldn't be lightfast, that ph green/purple switch screams anthocyanins, which is never any good at lasting though loads of fun. I just wanted to see how bad it was. You never no, surprises do happen!

The top color was painted and then covered on the left side of the line with the right side exposed and left in a sunny window. The three colors below are all homegrown indigo, transformed into maya blue from two different growing seasons. (Oh, the tiny wood sample is another botanical pigment that I have been experimenting with that IS lightfast and was such a nice surprise. More on that later.)

The sample below is after 3 months.

You can see that the solanum didn't hold up too well, but it wasn't as quick to fade as I thought it would be either. Would I use it on my wooden work for sale? No. Should I test how this performs under different circumstances on wool fiber? Yeah, could be fun.

So this is another plant I'll continue growing for food (just like hopi amaranth) and probably mess around with on fiber for fun and for my own knitting projects, but it won't be making an appearance in my actual professional wooden work.

That indigo though. So good.

The Cozy Bear Den Wood Shop

2021-02-23T16:16:10-08:00

I guess it is time for an update, since my last post was in autumn and I wrote about how my garage was freezing and I wouldn't be able to do any wooden work all until spring.

Instead, I carved out a cozy, tiny woodworking space in the cellar (it's a basement but I prefer the word cellar because it sounds more romantic, no?) and I have been creating work all winter. I LOVE this space. It is by far my most favorite work space, even more than my first garage space from 2007-2009 in Los Angeles, though I'll always love that one since it all started there.

It took some getting used to the idea of a basement - er, I mean cellar - work space. Dark, damp, depressing and dreary are the adjectives that I started with. But I painted the walls (after adding walls, that is, just studs before) added a super bright overhead light (that has to be turned on with a stick because the switch is on the ceiling and I can't reach it) and of course sealed the crap out of the tiny room and then added air filtration to avoid any sawdust from escaping. I added some wooden branches and leaf art to the walls, sewed an adorable work apron and otherwise carved out a cozy creative cave.

It's my cozy bear den art studio. It is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It is dry and private and sealed and safely tucked into the earth under my kitchen, the heart of my home. It is my sanctuary.

It is loud to be in a tiny room so I now wear ear protection, which is new. In addition to the tabletop dust extractor for sanding, I use a Festool that attaches to all power tools and have an overhead, ceiling mount air filtration system. This is by far the cleanest set up I have ever used, which is a huge bonus to not being in a garage where I tend to get lazy about this.

Moon Series for October

2020-10-19T19:43:07-07:00

Two full months bookending this month. It certainly had something to do with the moon series that was released today.

More Than the Sum of Her Parts, 2020 (SOLD)

Air, 2020 (SOLD)

Fire, 2020 (SOLD)

Water, 2020 (SOLD)

Earth, 2020 (SOLD)

They all sold individually this afternoon, but here are the four elements together:

As usual, all colors are from rocks, stones, dirt and plants. A whole lot of homegrown indigo was used in this series, good thing I had a very large harvest again this summer.

On future work? Well, it has been an unusually cold fall. It even snowed today for a few hours! Not sure how much longer I will be able to be cut wood in my uninsulated, unheated, freezing cold garage. I'd really like to get one more series done before winter freeze takes over but the weather forecast is arguing with me about the feasibility of this. With delicate work like this, I can't work when my hands freeze. It's not enjoyable and also dangerous.

I didn't realize how easy I had it those years making wooden toys in Los Angeles, winter wasn't an issue! Here, where it regularly gets below zero, heated and insulated studios are a must. Except, nope, I don't have one of those. Yet. (See what I did there? Putting that "yet" on the end keeps the possibility open.)

PS - if you are seeing this (does anyone even read blogs anymore?) and want to know when my next shop update is BEFORE everything is already sold out, subscribe to my newsletter. The sign up button is on the right column (on a computer) or annoyingly at the very bottom of the page on phones. Or you can sign up here on this subscribe page.

Handmade Chalk Turquoise Paint & Lightfastness Tests

2020-05-21T15:03:42-07:00

I inherited a portion of my uncle's rock collection when he died about ten years ago. He was a hobby jeweler and did his own lapidary in his basement. Many of the stones he made jewelry with were found by him during his lifetime as a rock collector by going to rock digs or simply collecting Lake Superior agate along the shore.

Included in the box of mystery rocks and rough gemstones were two small jars of turquoise.

The jar on the right is what is called "chalk turquoise" and it is rather chalky and grinds down fairly easily.

A beautiful, soft blue green color. So the question is (it is ALWAYS my question!) what about lightfastness? I am particularly interested because of the genuine turquoise Daniel Smith brand paint lightfastness results that Jane Blundell shared. After 19 months in a sunny window, they did show some fading.

You might think that "some fading" after 19 months would be no big deal, I mean, which plant dye could ever hold up that long in full sun? (Spoiler: none of them.) The part that is fascinating is...why? Why does turquoise fade? And if it does, how quickly?

Makes a greenish color when painted out (interesting!) and it isn't vibrant enough that I'd use it for my work anyway, but still...a fun experiment.

So I covered a piece of wood as well as some watercolor paper and left it in a south facing sunny window for a month. There was no change. So I left it another month...

After two months? No change, no fading.

No idea if with more time they would indeed fade, or if the Daniel Smith brand paints that were tested in the link shared above have something else going on. Not sure, but very interesting.

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I've closed comments on this blog as I was getting slammed with spam comments. You can connect with me via instagram Amber_Dusick.

Where to Find Rocks for Pigments to Make Paint

2020-05-21T14:32:17-07:00

So where do you find rocks that can be processed down into fine pigments to make paint and stains? And what rocks to look for?

Here's the thing. Any rock that you can grind down finely can be used. Some rocks are much, much easier to grind down finely than others so that's the only trick there is. If you had the ability to grind diamonds into fine dust you could use diamonds. It's really this simple.

My mortar and pestle that I use for initial smashing of rocks is a cast iron mortar and pestle and then once pea sized, I switch to my granite mortar and pestle. This means that I am only able to grind down rocks that are softer than granite. Granite is pretty darn hard. It is a 6-7 on the moh's hardness scale. So really, the main limiting factor is whether or not you can grind it down to a fine powder.

Just another reminder to use dust masks, people. Please.

The short answer to where to find rocks for pigment is anywhere. The long answer is that it depends on where you live.

Here is an example of a bunch of rocks and dirt revealed when a construction crew came through and dug an area up. Road cut outs (where hills are cut away for a road to pass through) are often excellent places to check.

Another place to check is where land meets water - river, lake, ocean shores and even tiny creek beds.

Below is a perfect example of a river source. Just looks like a bunch of brown stones, right? Any color here?

At first glance, it can be hard to see, but if you look closer (often colors are only revealed on the inside, being stained brown on the outside) you'll see potential.

These are sandstone - I talk about how to process rocks for wood stains in a different post that features sandstone.

The rocks pictured at the very top of this post ground down finely and easily into these colors:

These are mostly ochre colors, near the site of an abandoned iron mine. If you happen to have iron mining history in your area (time to dig out the local history books) it can be an excellent place to search.

Sometimes, following clues like the names of towns or roads can lead you to interesting places.

In some areas of the world, exposed rock and land formations have bands of colors or there can be entire mountains of color (think colorful desert areas that include names like "painted" or "red" for starters) so it really depends on where you are.

Every handmade rock or earth based color I use is also tested for lightfastness directly on wood samples like these above. I have yet to find a single earth based pigment that fades in the slightest...which is why I am so enamored with them and why they have replaced plant colors for me (with the exception of beloved indigo here and a few others). More on using indigo on wood here.

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I've closed comments on this blog as I was getting slammed with spam comments. You can connect with me via instagram Amber_Dusick.

Red Hopi Amaranth Dye & Lightfastness Tests

2020-05-21T14:05:38-07:00

I have grown red hopi amaranth for seven years now and it is one of my favorite garden plants. It is beautiful and becomes a staple green for us in summer in cooked egg scrambles and salads. We also feed it to our rabbits. The seeds are abundant and easy to save. It is also a beautiful dye plant...

The thing is, to extract the dye, I have found that it cannot be heated. Stovetop dyeing will quickly turn it to a brown. This is yet another dye that benefits from gentle solar dyeing in glass jars, which is how I dye everything (except when using indigo and sometimes walnut).

Here is a page from my dye book. Only the flower heads that have already gone to seed at the end of the season offer the vibrant magenta color and it is coaxed out with the addition of vinegar. Two weeks in solar jars in the hot August sun. The leaves offer yellow. Alkaline seed dye offers orange tones.

Very pretty and vibrant!!

So what about lightfastness? I am always going to bring up and test lightfastness because the lack of transparency on this topic is the most frustrating thing about the plant dye community.

Here is a test card with a variety of dyes, which I know are NOT lightfast enough for me. I think each person has different standards - either that or very few people are actually doing their own lightfastness tests.

From left: 2 avocado pit, 3 black hollyhock petal, 2 painted mountain corn husk, 2 black bean, 2 red hopi amaranth

Wool yarn was mordanted with alum, solar dyed in jars. All samples sat in a sunny window for three weeks.

Lightfast huh? Not really. Though honestly, I am surprised by how well the black bean did, I thought it would fade even more than it did. It didn't go grey as I expected, just a lighter version of blue.

Even the avocado pits faded considerably, especially on the 2nd yarn sample. Yes, different yarns will alter results! This is why it is so, so, so important to do your own lightfastness tests before selling products.

Again, I am not vilifying natural dyes, I adore them and will continue to use them (even amaranth) for my own projects. But I can't stress enough that lack of transparency (and testing by individual makers) could be the downfall of natural dyes for those selling products dyed with them. And that would be a shame.

More about lightfastness tests for my own work of plant dyes on wood here.

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I've closed comments on this blog as I don't have time to check them and was getting slammed with spam comments. You can connect with me via instagram Amber_Dusick.

Shop Update: Tree Series Releases Next Week

2020-05-01T15:36:03-07:00

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I offered a shop update. At least if you consider three years to be a long time.

I have been working on this tree series for five months and just finished the last one this week. There are seven pieces in all.

I have completely switched to using handmade stains from all natural materials. I no longer use any purchased paint made with synthetic pigments or binders.

Each color is from rocks, dirt, clay or plants. This is a core part of my creative process now. Finding pigment rocks and processing them into useable colors. Growing plants from seed to harvest and processing them into useable colors. This is where nature intersects with art making in my creative process. Well, in addition to nature having always been a primary inspiration source, that is.

Natural colors from rocks and plants can be mixed to form a broad palette that magically seems to always look beautiful together and adds an "aliveness" quality to the work that I've never found from synthetic colors.

The wood itself (being a yellow tone) adds a warmth and vibrancy itself as well, changing dingy greens to brighter, fresher ones. Many colors I make look vastly different once applied to wood than they do in dry pigment form, so I test each one first.

I am also continuing to do lightfast tests. Rock and earth pigments are generally stable, but there are some exceptions. Plants are almost never lightfast enough for my liking, but there are also some exceptions.

I could talk more about the work itself, but I have always enjoyed artwork more when it is not explained to me. Everyone sees what they are going to see anyway.

All of these (plus a couple more) will be available next week in my shop.