Garden plants – Celia Wilson

April 2020

By: Celia Wilson 28 April, 2020

Bees, botanical paintings, Garden plants, Watercolour paintBees, garden weeds, Patterns, watercoloursLeave a Comment

Repeat Patterns

Autumn now in the garden; mallow flowers still calling the bees, and dandelion clocks lingering in the grass.

Two patterns, one off-register. This was accidentally the result of painting in watercolours a sheet of tracing paper laid over the ink outline pattern. I married the two scans together in Photoshop to create this first image. The second image is the pattern created from painting an A4 version of a print of the outline tile.

Really enjoyed this, feel I am getting somewhere now with this process. Thanks to pandemic lockdown I have had the time… As we say in New Zealand, “Kia Kaha” – Be Strong. And take care.

Autumn Garden Colours

By: Celia Wilson 5 May, 2019

botanical paintings, Garden plants, Gouache, Spray Free, Watercolour paintGouache, Illustration, SkillshareLeave a Comment

Autumn is such a colourful time, and especially so when some of the summer flowers are still blooming.

Was really caught up in some artwork based on the plants in the autumn garden.

I recently completed a Skillshare class by illustrator Sara Boccaccini Meadows – and this was the result. My painting is in gouache with a touch of ‘Ultramarine Deep’ watercolour to highlight the delphiniums. I have not really used gouache before, but discovered for me that using it is an interesting cross between oil paint and watercolour – you can layer on top of dry paint and also mix the colours together on the paper.

LOCALity

I took part in this exhibition, and showed some of my paintings made with ink from empty seed pods from Harakeke (NZ flax plant). I also held a paintmaking workshop.

Here is the published information:

Last days for the exhibition LOCALity at Arts in Oxford, 72 Main St, Oxford. Exhibition closes Tues 10 July 2018.

LOCALity: a group exhibition exploring location, materiality & positioning

Arts in Oxford is pleased to present a selection of artworks by Canterbury artists Mark Adams, Mike Boot, Tony Bond, Cheryl Lucas, Elfi Spiewack, Tessa Warburton and Celia Wilson.

Artists each have diverse, unique practices but collectively are themes of rural life that connect all the works. Local geology, farming industry, water issues, native and introduced flora, recycling, repurposing are all reflected in this curated exhibition.

Images by Arts In Oxford.

2018-05-24 03.00.16-1 2018-05-24 03.02.34-1 2018-05-24 03.11.27-1

(You can just see my artworks on the wall in this photo above.)

Press Release:

Art_in_Oxford_LOCALity_Press Release_final-1

LOCALITY JUNE-JULY

Harakeke colours

By: Celia Wilson 6 November, 2016

Dyeing, Garden plants, New Zealand native plants, Pigments, Solar dyeing, Uncategorized3 Comments

Solar dyes. Some colours of Harakeke.

Spring 2016 in Oxford, North Canterbury

By: Celia Wilson 22 October, 201622 October, 2016

Dyeing, Garden plants, Spray Free, Spring time, Uncategorizedart, environment, nature, plants, weedsLeave a Comment

Catching the spring before it fades…

A low of -1 degrees Celsius overnight, but a clear blue sky this morning means now I can get the washing dried on the line! Snow on the mountains arrived as well. I could not resist taking the camera out to record the plants in the garden.

I always fight between clearing or not clearing the ‘weeds’ as clearing them disturbs everything in the flower beds. Then when the dry, hot days arrive I think the weeds would help to keep the soil moist. But I know that the strong weeds would overtake the cultivated plants. The vegetable and fruit trees and bushes are looking at their best just now. Lots of Ladybirds – hope they and the birds do a good job controlling the aphids. It is a balancing act between taking action and just observing. A new location brings a new set of conditions. I am intrigued at the different biodiversity existing in two locations 2 kilometres apart from each other. We have fewer birds and habitats for them here than at the last place. I’ve started reading my permaculture book again. Need a jungle.

There are some lovely black blue iris flowers just opening – will they make some dye?

My painting, the last image, now looks just like Spring!

Solar Dyes: From Purple and Red to Green

By: Celia Wilson 31 December, 20151 January, 2016

Dyeing, Garden plants, Kozo paper, Pigments, Solar dyeing, Uncategorizeddyes, plants4 Comments

Spring brought the peonies, one of which had deep red petals which went into a dye pot with pieces of silk, wool and cotton.

Painting of Aoraki – Mt Cook behind the flowers is by John Horton. These peonies were a gift from Viv and Nancy!

This is the amazing colour that appeared…

My next test was with a ‘new’ kumara variety called Purple Dawn. [Kumara is a sweet potato, which Maori brought with them to New Zealand.] My friend Casey Macaulay told me how she had experimented painting with the red cooking water and how when vinegar was added the liquid turned bright green – I just had to try for myself. The silk and cotton absorbed the red colour, but the paper was different as seen below. I forgot to wash the kumara, and I think the ‘bits’ in the dye came from the skin.

The green-yellow fabric at the top is old cotton t-shirt rag, I had the same pink/green result when I dropped the dye onto the surface. The dark dye brush mark is with vinegar added, the pink mark is straight out of the solar dye jar. Note how the silk and cotton stay pink.

For the next test I cleaned, peeled and shredded the kumara, and added some sodium acetate to a separate portion of the dye. The vinegar (sodium acetate) did turn the dye green, but the colours were so different. I probably should not have prepared the kumara quite so much! Casey has different water to us so that may explain the paler green results I had.

By this time I was getting really confused by these results – you probably are too (!); I did a further test in my workbook to see if the paper there gave different results. When I put a blog together I try to get the photo image colours correct (via Photoshop). Here however, if I alter the pink, the green is wrong. So I would comment that in the scan of the workbook page below –

The top left blob has a distinct dark purple edges and the overall colour is slightly green with a purple tinge

The top right hand brush stroke should be pinker

Both the Kumara No 1 tests colours should be bluer

The Kumara No 2 tests; neither should be so green…the one on the left is a pale brown.

If you are still with me, there is more!

My next solar dye was with the paler red peonies (in the photograph at the top). The silk and cotton took up the dye with no problem, but the addition of some vinegar brightened the colour on the silk and cotton.

Hollyhock petals were collected during the summer of 2013/2014 in the old garden; I kept these in the freezer. I tried India Flint’s ice-flower dye method as described in her book Eco Colour whereby you place the frozen petals directly into warm water, but the water I used was hot. The result was almost instantaneous – a deep dark red. I put silk and knitted cotton in the solar dye. The knitted cotton only partly submerged and what emerged was a mix of pink-red and green – again. I also added some vinegar and salt to portions of the dye. Images below.

The bright green mark at the centre of the knitting was caused by the sample left to dry over a piece of metal. The grey colour that appears sometimes is where the material was not completely submerged but some colour has been transferred by osmosis it would seem. I do fold or scrunch up the cloth as well and for these tests am not bothered by colour variations .

Later I used the original dye for further tests. Just great colour harmonies here. Green and blue-green marks made by copper pipe. The paper is kozo.

In these tests, all the silk and cotton was originally white and unwashed, no mordants used, just the salt and vinegar added afterwards to separated amounts of dye liquid. The chemicals in the paper seem to affect the dyes. I could try applying soy milk to the paper and letting it dry before painting on the dye.

Walks in the Waitakere Ranges

By: Celia Wilson 15 November, 20156 May, 2016

Garden plants, New Zealand native plants, Organic paints, Pigments, Uncategorized, Watercolour paintLeave a Comment

Have just found this draft which was started late last year, so I thought I should finish it.

In November I spent a week near the Waitakere Ranges just north of Auckland, and had the opportunity for some lovely bush walks.

Paddocks and regenerating forest – Manuka a nursery species. Ponga, tree ferns, Kauri alongside the track.

Close up of Kauri bark. Gorgeous!

Crossed this stream. Typical of the bush streams in the area. This one is near civilisation.

Definitely not in the bush! Planted at the entrance to a property. Looks like a Black Eyed Susan vine Thunbergia alata.

Kawakawa , Macrocarpa excelsum– lovely holes in the leaves from it’s friendly co-habitant, the Kawakawa looper moth caterpillar.

I managed to find some pigments – mainly hard clay, and some small clay pebbles, rounded by the running stream water. I’ve never seen these before, was quite a surprise. Because they are wet, the colour comes off on to your fingers, and you can easily mark another harder surface. I thought perhaps that could have started the use of clay as paint…

Bees need saving from neonicotinoides

By: Celia Wilson 11 November, 201511 November, 2015

Bees, Garden plants, Spray FreeBees, insecticides, neonicotinoides, Spray FreeLeave a Comment

I have a bee in my bonnet at the moment regarding the use of neonicotinoids in our home gardens. Neonicotinoids (such as acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, nitenpyram, nithiazine, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam) are present in insecticide sprays and sold through garden centres and hardware stores. The use of such insecticides has been linked to bee colony collapse.

Radio NZ reported

“that a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health found high levels of neonicotinoids in six pollen samples from New Zealand. Veteran pesticide researcher Dr Meriel Watts who now works as a consulting scientist for the United Nations and other organisations, said that was a threat to bees that the EPA has consistently refused to acknowledge. She said neonicotinoids did not stay on the seed, but were absorbed by the plant and in turn by the insects that fed on it, including bees. “They are taken up by the growing plant from the seed coating and dispersed throughout the plant throughout its lifetime,” Dr Watts said. “So they appear in the pollen, they appear in the flowers, they appear in the fruit and vegetables we eat and they appear in the little droplets of water that plants exude in the early dawn.”

Another use for this insecticide is for coating seeds. There is a useful background discussion of the issues above on – http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/284413/nz-urged-to-follow-us-pesticide-ban

So keep your garden safe. Spray free is so much better – let nature find the balance. I do not use these ‘quick fixes’, and have found that after a few years the soil improves so much and plants thrive better, fighting off diseases.

Earth’s life systems are more important than making money. It seems to me that these company’s inventions and their interventions in the natural balances of the planet are given precedence over the damage they do.

Poppies in our garden –

I have just visited the NZ Beekeepers Association website – http://www.nba.org.nz/learn/beneficial-plants-for-bees/

Below is their useful list for encouraging bees. Why not let your brassicas flower, and have a weed bed – or just don’t cut the lawns in places – so you build up your plant diversity. There is also information on tree species useful for bees nutrition.

Our garden is quiet at the moment, for the bees are not finding flowers to their liking; the spring flowers finished, the fruit trees have flowered, the kale and cabbages flowers gone to seed – I will have to find plants that flower now!

LIST OF NECTAR RICH PLANTS SUITABLE FOR GARDENS (they do say check on those weeds to avoid in your area)

Banksia spp.
Barberry (Berberis spp.)
Bee balm (Monarda didyma, M. citriodora)
Bottlebrush (Callistemon spp.)
Borage (Borago officinalis)
Brassicas (Brassica spp.)
Buddleia (Buddleja salviifolia)
Buttercup (Ranunculus repens)
Cabbage tree (Cordyline australis)
Californian lilac (Ceanothus spp., cvs)
Catmint (Nepeta spp.)
Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
Clover (Trifolium repens)
Cucumber, melon, zucchini (Cucurbita spp.)
Dahlia (Dahlia imperialis) & varieties
Echium spp.
Gum tree (Eucalyptus spp.)
Harakeke / NZ flax (Phormium tenax)
Heather (Erica spp.)
Ice plant (Sedum spectabile)
Kanuka (Kunzea ericoides)
Karo (Pittosporum crassifolium)
Kohuhu (Pittosporum tenuifolium)
Lemon, grapefruit, orange (Citrus spp.)
Koromiko (Hebe macrocarpa ) & varieties
Manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) Manatu (Plagianthus betulinus)
Kumarahou (Pomaderris kumeraho)
Lavender (Lavandula spp) & varieties
Mexican aster (Cosmos spp) & varieties
Mimosa (Acacia baileyana)
Northern rata (Metrosideros robusta)
NZ lacebark (Hoheria populnea)
NZ jasmine (Parsonsia heterophylla)
Persimmon (Diospyros kaki)
Penstemon (Penstemon spp.) & varieties
Phacelia tanacetifolia
Poached egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii)
Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa)
Rewarewa (Knightia excelsa)
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)
Sage (Salvia apiana, S. fallax, S. officinalis)
and other spp.
Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale)
Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)
Symphytum grandiflorum
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)
Tree lucerne (Chamaecytisus palmensis)
Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
Wharangi (Melicope ternata)
Zinnia (Zinnia spp.) & varieties

Object or Thing

Cannot add more to this piece of work. It sat there for a while, rolled up in the old bible box that my Grandmother used as a hat box (she had wonderful hats). Then the other night I finished off the bottom right hand corner. A little piece of family genealogy there, to me anyway…

Lying flat on the table, it is a thing. Nothing wrong with being ‘a thing’ – it seems things in our lives are interconnected with our brains and consciousness and make us what we are, allowing us to make new connections. Is it more interesting as a thing or an object now that I have fastened to the wall? Does it take on a new identity? Or has it lost its becoming and is now static – I won’t say dead. Its new persona invites new becomings, however.

Lovely design on the ‘hat box’.

Explore Find Collect Discover

By: Celia Wilson 23 January, 201523 January, 2015

Dyeing, Garden plants, Nature prints, New Zealand native plants, Patchwork, PrintsAkua inks, art, cotton, dyes, Nature prints, New Zealand plants, patchwork, Pohutukawa blossom, weedsLeave a Comment

Progressing with my little piece of fanciful endeavour. The weather is too hot to do much but I am enjoying this evening pastime. Trying to contextualise this piece, I found it lends itself to ‘something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue’. The ‘borrowing’ comes from Spirit Cloth, so thanks to Jude for her inspiration and putting me on yet another path.

It is quite difficult to find suitable, old, worn cloth, but I realise I have to collect all my textiles and yarns in one spot – I seem to be endlessly looking for where I have stashed them – and since we moved they could be anywhere! I am using fabric dyed last year, snippets of my mother’s dressmaking, her box of embroidery threads, my threads from those I collected decades ago and even some old silk velvet from my sister’s mother in law. The cloth (dyed in tea) with the holes was an old pillowcase into which we used to put horse riding gear when it was being machine washed. The ‘something new’ is the print of the mallow plant growing in the new garden.

I really like the feel of the layers of cloth and the abstract forms created by the stitching on the reverse of the piece. The space created by the circle (top left) seems to suggest landscape, or a vista. It is the only part that has visual depth. What to do next…