This week I’ve been experimenting with more lake pigment making, using dandelions and blackberries. I am setting myself the challenge to see if I can create a palette of lake pigment colours that are from UK native plants. I’m thinking about how this process can connect us to the land and the seasons. Now that Spring is here there is lots of plant life popping up at my allotment such as nettles and sticky weed, and I’m going to collect these over the next week to see if I can

This week I made my first lake pigment using mugwort that I collected last Autumn from Erewash Canal. Learning a new process can feel overwhelming at first but I’ve found that now I have made a lake pigment once, I am eager to try it again! I am searching for UK native plants that are popping up in my local neighbourhood and questioning how they may turn out as a lake pigment. Mugwort Mugwort is often called the ‘Mother of Herbs’ and has strong associations with the moon, the

I have reached a point in my year of research and development where I feel ready to make some new commitments and set some new goals. The first being that I will only work with plants for natural colour making that are UK native. As a result of this I am learning that so many flowers, plants, vegetables and herbs are not UK native, which leads me to question how they got here in the first place? On a search for vegetables that were UK native, I found that pretty much none of