Coreopsis

This week I have been demonstrating making a lake pigment using the dried coreopsis flowers from my dye garden collected throughout the summer of last year.

Coreopsis is easy to grow and gives beautiful dye results. It is also known as “tickseed”.

The flowers can be used to make a lovely yellow/orange dye which I have over several years used to dye the alpaca’s fleece. It also dyes silk beautifully.

Recently I have been delighted to discover the wonderful range of watercolour paints possible after making lake pigments using the herbs grown in my dye garden.  As I have said before I am no artist, and I am partially sighted so I stick to whimsical characters where I do not need to be precise!  but I just love all the beautiful colours these wonderful plants produce! Nature is so amazing.

There is still time for you to create your own dye garden if you haven’t done so already. Seeds are available for sale from my website dyeing-crafts.co.uk along with lots of information on how you can use the dyes. It is so satisfying and eco-friendly!

Follow my recent BLOGS  on my website which will give you information on creating lake pigments so you can create your own watercolor palette.

Making the lake pigment.

100g dried flower heads. Leave to soak overnight, The following day heat to a simmering point for about 45 minutes. Strain/filter into a beaker with a cheesecloth. The flower heads can be used again to make a paler shade later if you wish. Whilst the liquid is still warm add 50g of alum and stir well until fully dissolved. Once dissolved very slowly and carefully add 25g of soda ash which has been dissolved in hot water. This will create a powerful effervescent so take care. You are aiming to achieve a pH of 7. Scrape everything from the side of the beaker as this contains lots of valuable pigment. 

Leave this to settle overnight. The following day draw off the water above the settled pigment with a syringe and dispose of it. 

Filter the sediment through a coffee filter adding a little distilled water if very thick

The next step is to wash the pigment to remove any residue colourant, alum or soda ash that didn’t bind to the pigment. So transfer the pigment to a fresh beaker using distilled water to rinse the filter paper. Add more distilled water to the beaker and leave to settle overnight. Repeat the washing process a few times until there is a clear separation. 

At this stage, the pigment is clean and can be filtered and dried then ground into a very fine powder.