jyotsna, Author at Lost in Colours

Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye Garden?-Part VII

10th November 2022

This is the final post in my natural dye garden series, as the gardening season has come to an end with the arrival of autumn. My natural dye garden served as both a teaching space and a very tranquil and reinvigorating environment for me. It is time to reflect on the previous season’s accomplishments, put the garden to bed, and prepare it for the next season. I learned several things while tending to my first natural dye garden, including how…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

Making Natural Inks

12th October 2022

In June 2019, I released my first post about creating natural inks. Since then, I’ve explored, experimented, and optimized my ink-making formulas using various natural substances. I have learned much about this ancient means of communication. Ink is far more sophisticated than we realize! What is Ink? There are certainly as many definitions of ink as there are varieties. The most basic definition is that ink is a colored liquid or semi-liquid material used for writing, printing, or drawing. Chemists…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks Painting & Sketching

Testing lightfastness of handmade artist grade paints

29th August 2022

The colors you use when creating a painting or drawing mustn’t fade over time. The last thing you need is your diligent work to gradually fade over time because the mediums you selected had poor lightfastness ratings. In this blog, I will share a simple test that you can do to get an idea of how your handmade colors will fare when exposed to sunlight. What is lightfastness? The lightfastness of paints or colorants is an attribute that determines how…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye Garden?!-VI

7th August 2022

Before departing on a three-week summer vacation, I visited my natural dye garden to tend to my plants, gather the blooms, and take care of the damage caused by the severe thundershowers two days before. When I arrived, the garden was in full bloom, and the pollinators were busily performing their jobs, but the thunderstorms had seriously damaged quite a few coreopsis plants. I began by collecting the bright and zingy orange cosmos flowers, then plucked the coreopsis blooms from…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye garden?!-Part V

25th June 2022

Gardening is a contemplative, humble activity that allows you to communicate with nature. It is a practice where you can’t force anything but patiently wait. I was delighted to see the flowers blooming after months of hard labour in my dye garden. It is gratifying to see your efforts bear fruit. In this blog post, I don’t have much to report but share the beauties of my dye garden. At the moment, the flowers are blooming both on my balcony…

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