Visiting Marmora was an amazing experience. Mining in this location goes back to the 1820s, and as one hikes around the site, the idea of all this rock being moved by men and horses is mind-boggling. A photograph simply can’t do justice to the size of the open pit (now half filled with water), or … Read more
Before the snows come, I’ve decided that I want to get out for a least a couple days of rock hounding. The connection with the earth is so important within my art that, as much as I love my studio, I need to head out up to the Canadian Shield and into the bush to … Read more
Today I got to work exploring the colour potential of two different rocks I collected last year: Lemonite from Madoc and Annabergite from Cobalt. Using intervals of 100°F, samples from both rocks were put into a small kiln and held there to change their colour (this is an old, primitive process that goes back to … Read more
I worked a little today on the red earth I collected around McGinnis Lake near Peterborough. Nothing fancy; just a simple wash (to get rid of the roots, etc.), and a basic decanting to get some sense of the colour. There’s something here that’s especially interesting to me: The idea that this dirt comes from … Read more
In life, it seems to me that there are two kinds of people: Those who eat their favourite bits of supper first, and those who save best for last. I guess I belong to the latter group, because I’ve been really enjoying the anticipation of harvesting the yellow ochre pigment that Reiner and I collected … Read more
While it has been good to see the colour changes that can happen when applying heat to the iron based ochres, this controlled fashion has limits for me. Without pushing things I can get the pigment samples up to about 1100 °C (roughly 2000 °F) and this gets me well into the brown range of … Read more
Today my eldest son and I went to the Guelph quarry to go rock hounding. We had a beautiful sunny day and the perfect cool weather to enjoy ourselves. We found many different crystals (a few which can be used for pigments) and came back after a full day with three big bags full of … Read more
Now that the fall weather is here in force, the horse chestnut tree behind our house is loosing its leaves and its nuts. I’ve used the hulls for the nuts before to make ink (something that Fr. Nathanael showed me many years ago). So today the kids and I gathered up what we could and … Read more
Winter seems to be coming quickly this year, and while it was cold this morning (11 °C / 52 °F) the week’s forecast called for even colder weather as the week progresses, so I decided to collected pigment from the Conestoga River today. Because of the rain we’ve had, the river is pretty muddy, but … Read more
Over the last few years I’ve collected a nice pile of rocks from the Conestoga River that have a wonderful sienna colour to them. That said, it seems like the rocks have absorbed the colour from something outside themselves (oftentimes the centre is still colourless). Today I took two of my children for a walk … Read more