/ @brockhewittstoriesinsound I created this video publication for my PhD research at the King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts in London on the topic of Painting Paradise using Paradisiacal materials (i.e. non-toxic, etc), and the way we can learn from this in terms of sustainability in art. For my research, I'm trying to connect theme and execution of art works, meaning that I if I paint about something like Paradise, which is generally considered the epitome of life and harmony, I also want that life to be part of my materials. So no harmful heavy-metals or toxic ingredients in my paints. I call this approach a holistic way of making art.
During the academic year of 2022-2023 I have been taking the Rose as a subject of study and research. I have been experimenting with merging theme and execution in my works on roses and have been pondering the idea of ‘the essence of the rose’. In terms of holistic art about roses, I decided to incorporate as many elements of a rose into my materials, to let the rose herself tell her own story. And so, I started making all sorts of paints and ink, using for example rose water and rose wood, but also, as this video shows, rosehip oil. In addition, I experimented with using more fragrant materials, like an extract of saffron for the heart of the rose, as well as an extract of frankincense for the paint I made with genuine Lapis Lazuli.
For my roses studies, I selected a Medieval manuscript on the alphabet . I merged two designs into one, because I wanted to make a gilded letter E for my daughter’s first birthday.
The whole project was an enormous undertaking, making over 8 colours of paint all by hand, and even making my own pigments. From start to finish, the final piece that is shown in this video, is eco-friendly and non-toxic, merging theme and materials used.
When it came to a Medieval ink I needed for outlining, I had the choice of two types of black ink: ink from oak gall apples, or ink from lamp black, which soot from oil that has been burnt. Since it was spring in the Netherlands, and I could not find any gall apples at that moment, so I decided to make a Medieval ink from charcoal/soot. Since I wanted to connect the theme of the rose to my materials, I decided to go for charcoal from Rosehips.
Usually soot is recommended for making ink, instead of ground up charcoal in a mortar and pestle. But I still had some dried rosehips lying around in my studio from the previous summer, and again, since it isn't autumn here yet, so no rosehips in my garden to make oil, I decided to give it a go and turn some of my rosehips into charcoal on a backyard fire we did as a family to cook our supper.
After literally grinding the resulting rosehip charcoal for 1.5 hours, and with a very tired arm, I had to conclude that the literature I read was right, and my pigment still wasn't fine enough for ink. Fortunately, I do have a very, very fine pigment for a black watercolour now, so not all my efforts were in vain. But, I was presented with another hurdle: how to source rosehip oil to make lamp black, in the middle of spring?!
While my usual approach during my research has become to express Paradise as a general concept, projected onto my locale & 'here and now', by using local and even hand-grown (native) materials with sustainability in mind, I decided to buy my rosehip oil this time, although I would have preferred to press some myself. I went with an organic and cold-pressed variety, and the process and result of my experiment is shown in this video.
Using the rosehip oil for my Medieval ink now made the whole circle complete, where every ingredient and material in my miniature art had something to do with the theme. This way of working has greatly influenced my artistic practice, by opening my eyes to working with fragrant materials when considering paradise. The fragrance that has entered my studio through the use of rose water, rose oil and saffron, as well as frankincense, which I used in an extract to create the lapis lazuli paint, all allowed me to visualise my local form of paradise in the here and now, while connecting to Medieval scribes and the way they related to their stylised version of the rose.
Now, after all my work, and discussing it with my supervisors at the school, I decided to change the white highlighting on the initial E, because I wasn't completely satisfied. I had used a new type of pigment, for the highlighting, namely mother-of-pearl, as a sustainable alternative to the toxic historic lead white. The mother-of-pearl paint turned out to be very viscous. This made painting fine lines very difficult, especially with curves, since my brush was suddenly so stiff. I decided to remove the white paint (a tool on which Medieval scribes relied as well for fixing mistakes in their copying and calligraphy...) And I painted it again with a different technique, where I used more binder to pigment, to create a more translucent paint. Also, I applied the paint in many layers, so as to 'sculpt out' the final flow of the white highlights, a bit similar to the way egg tempera icons are sometimes painted in many shaping layers.
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LINKS
For more information about my work, visit:
www.elmahogeboom.com
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MUSIC
Music from upp beat:
uppbeat [dot] io/t/brock-hewitt-stories-in-sound/roses
License code: AOYCHKALQC
All by :
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© Elma Hogeboom 2023. All rights reserved.
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