Colour from the season - old tea rose pink

Roses have been unseasonably flowering right up until this recent freezing cold spell. An old tea rose which has been optimistically in flower in my garden was caught by the frost and freeze-dried onto its stem.
To many people this rose might simply look dead, not worth a passing glance, but in it I found petals which had the starched form of aged silk taffeta and these wonderfully subdued colours of antique gold and dusky pinks...

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...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things...Inspirational old puzzles

The little things in life that make the difference...


...Finding these the"Victory" wooden jigsaw puzzles in the market, became the perfect excuse to have a break from everything digital on a frosty February weekend.


Probably produced sometime between the 1930's - 1940's

Part way through - The little animals and other objects
are called whimseys.

...there was a rabbit and a squirrel, a mouse, cat, swallow 

an axe and two swords.

Ta da!  'Welcome Home' - Sea, Boats and People. 

Sadly 3 pieces missing, but hoping I might find these 

in the other puzzle!

(p.s. they were in the other puzzle!!! - good job we got them both.)

Colour from the season - Mahonia yellow

Banish the winter blues with the vibrant yellows of the Mahonia. Much of the year this spiky shrub looks
unattractive, but from November until February it has
lovely pure yellow flowers which are highly fragrant,
followed by dusty red and purple blue berries...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colours of the month - January

It's well over a year since I started my notebook on seasonal colour. Intending originally to document a single year of plant colours, I've been encouraged by the increasing numbers of visitors to my blog as well as the enjoyment and knowledge I've discovered in doing it.

It's developed organically as its gone along and inevitably this continues, so here for the first time is a selection of colours from the January notebook pages to become my Colours of the Month...

The colours of Mussel Shells (January 2011 was when I first posted them!), Catkins (from the Hazel) and Monterey Pine cone make up my January selection...

Thank you :) to the people who have given me plants and other specimens(!) or emailed/told me how much they enjoy my posts - Much appreciated.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Catkin green

Catkins, I posted their colours last year and today just had to draw them.

"A unisexual inflorescence, consisting of rows of apetalous flowers ranged in circles along a slender stalk;" - Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

That's what the dictionary says!  I say, look out for the brightest green/yellow colour of their tails against a blue January sky and it will put a spring in your step - it did mine..!

If you like this post - you can subscribe to Planet Sam by email :) here.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Sedum green

Look closely at the tall Sedums at the moment and you might notice that shoots are sprouting up from the base. I noted a few of the colours of these last year on 24th January, so I know that the fresh growth this year isn't early despite the warm weather. The colours of the rusty old seed-heads and verdant young buds are looking good again together. Not much to say about them except they thrive in drought, do ok in the wet too and so undemanding they really do grow on you!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - dead Horse Chestnut leaf brown

While you might expect to see snowdrops, primroses
and even at a push the odd daff in a sheltered spot
this early in January, to see roses, campanula and cow parsley still flowering and celandine out and in flower
is surely not seasonal.

In spite of this burst of new colour, I find at the moment I'm attracted to the beauty of the partially decayed leaves of the Horse Chestnut. They retain rich autumnal red brown tones and while perhaps uninspiring in the wet woodland, bring them into the warm and they slowly furl into fascinating brittle sculptural forms. Alike in colour, each transforms in a unique way, some curl in on themselves sides hugging, others roll up at their tips, constraining the curl of the sides - they have a very wintry (and seasonal) look about them...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Lichen greens

Mixing up paints to add colour detail to this drawing, it occurred to me how easy I find it. It goes back to my degree at Camberwell when I didn't have a lot of money to buy paint so I mainly bought the three primary's. I usually got ultra marine, crimson red and lemon yellow, as well as (and essentially) black and white. If I could I would also get yellow ochre, burnt sienna and raw umber, but I could make do without these as you can mix every colour from the primary's plus black and white - it was just quicker to be able to add ochres and umbers to get olive greens etc.

Since I began this notebook, I've lost track of the number of plant colours that I've matched to printed CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black)). I've now got detailed information with which to mix up hundreds of plant colours. For example Lichen green2 (below) has 10% Cyan, 0% Magenta, 55% Yellow and 30% Black. This knowledge makes mixing colours easier still and what's really great is they will print accurately as well.

I've sampled some of the colour I found in Oakmoss Lichen before but this is the first time I've tackled drawing it. It was as hard as it looks and I had to use a magnifying glass to look for the detail. Reminded me of a deer's antlers - the shadow of the drawing is especially striking.

outlined in pencil.

inked in drawing - a few blots but nothing too serious.

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...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Monterey cone red

Stormy weather here and the large Monterey Pine cones from the huge tree at Heddons Mouth are scattered on the ground - they can stay attached to the tree for over 30 years which is quite remarkable! The intricate overlapping spiral patterns in the cone (which follow the Fibonacci series) are difficult to count and tricky to draw, because it's just so easy to lose sight of where you are on the clockwise spiral and then having to continually cross check that you are still in line with the counter clockwise spiral. 1-1-2-3-5-8-13...Phew!

Here are the colours from these cones.

pencil sketch and wash...

first ink outlines...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

the little things - not too wet to Woooo!

the little things in life that make the difference...

This year I've been developing a range of products, what with one thing and another going on it's taken longer to get this up and running than I had anticipated, partly because I decided that the range would be hand screen printed here in our North Devon studio and that involved quite a lot of setting up, but also well..because I'm quite a perfectionist, and I wanted the collection to be very special!

I decided to return to screen and digitally printing the products myself, they are therefore individual, exclusive and have the quirky differences of the handmade. All the materials are of the highest quality and sourced in the U.K. wherever possible. I also use unbleached materials wherever I can as a positive environmental choice.

See the printing of the Owl cushion last week at our screen print blog Exposed
(Designed and printed by Josse and Sam Pickard).

Top image: Wood Panther Moth one of 4 prints bringing the 'Night and Day' series onto cushions.

All are now available on my online shop HERE, and we ship anywhere in the world!

The little things - New Year New Nibs!

The little things in life that make the difference...

...finally getting around to buying some new nibs for my dip pens. I spotted these on ebay - described as vintage, they were from Hungary and there were 84 nibs in total.




















I'd worn my old nibs down so badly from use, that they were looking like this - not good. The nib holders are worn out too - the top one is cork and wood under all that ink.



















A new nib and a lovely old tin to store them all. (must get
a better nib holder than this bog standard plastic one).



















No excuses not to draw - I may never need another nib -
Happy New Year!

Colour from the season - Mistletoe yellow

In winter once the leaves have all fallen, you can see the Mistletoe hanging in ethereal almost perfectly circular balls from the branches. A partial parasite, it provides the host with energy (through photosynthesis) but it also takes food from the plant and eventually is destructive to it.

There are numerous and varied explanations where the custom of kissing underneath it came from on the internet. It has certainly long been a symbol of peace and also fertility, but if it's difficult to be absolutely sure when the custom started, its not hard to understand why its still going strong!

Its delicate structural form casts wonderful shadows. The berries not white at all but the palest green/grey, vibrant yellow buds blending down into the stems and leaves.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Hawthorn berry red

Lining the lanes here in the Shire at the moment, I notice the red of the Hawthorn berries, starting to blacken with age not falling but desiccating on the branches. It's a rich subdued red, perfect for this time of year. I love the Hawthorn, I love its leaves, its berries, its folklore, perhaps this should be the red of Christmas rather than (to my mind) the more garish red of the Holly berry...

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...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Hydrangea petal red

Hydrangeas (I believe) are at their most attractive as the flowers start to fade and become skeletal. I was in a very frazzled mood the day I drew this. It's captured in the drawing and it perhaps has more vigour and expression because of it. It may not appeal to everyone, I know that my mum wasn't overly keen(!x) but I rather like it. The faded colours reminiscent of the natural dyes, Brazilwood, Walnut and I'm pretty sure that Weld over-dyed in a weak Indigo vat will produce that green...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Rose hip (Maigold) orange

Recently I had a letter from a student asking me about my 'interpretation of details extracted from the landscape' and how I transfer them to textiles. I thought this was an interesting description and certainly beats the clichéd expression ..inspired by nature (which as a rule I try never to use).

Originally I began writing in this blog about seasonal colour because I was tired of the increasing influence of the global trend forecasting industry for colour and design. My designs have at times been in trend forecasting magazines and used for trend forecasts. Although these publications can be very inspirational, they are also self fulfilling. Designers follow the colour and trend predictions and therefore the predictions are fulfilled. I felt there was an alternative story to be told and I decided to research seasonal colour from plants, which I have been doing for the past 13 months.

As the notebook has developed it is increasingly a useful resource book of colour and imagery. I document all the colours directly from the plant and I record them in CMYK, RGB and NCS colours - which are the colour systems I use. It's meant I am continually drawing, developing creative ideas through drawing and 'extracting details from the landscape' to build a personal visual language for my creative work. If it also inspires other people then that's even better.

Here, the intense and fiery hip colours of the Maigold Rose outside my front door at the moment - it's the upside of not getting around to dead-heading..!

P.S. ..just posted on our silk screen blog (silkscreenexposed.blogspot.com) how to...coat a silk-screen!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - New Zealand flax pink

Not seasonal perhaps, but as the brighter colours in the garden are starting to fade - the simple muted palette and structural form of this New Zealand flax (Phormium) adds sophistication. Some people might find these muted colours too drab - to me they are reminiscent of Art Nouveau, of the poster illustrations of artists from that period such as Alphonse Mucha and Henri J. Detouche - subtle and organic. I find I respond to some subjects infinitely more than others and I really enjoyed drawing these...

Poster 1899 by Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939)

Poster 1896 by Henri J. Detouche (1854-1913)

If you like this post - you can subscribe to Planet Sam by email :) here.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things...exposed

The little things in life that make the difference...

...something we always planned since we found our lovely old garage/workshop in North Devon ten years ago, is at last happening and we are opening it up as a print facility, where we plan to run workshops, ourselves as well as with guest practitioners, offer print services, hold exhibitions and discuss all things relating to print (and dye). The first blog post went up today showing the logo being printed - you can follow us and see what we're up to over the coming months at exposed.

Colour from the Season - Fatsia green

Fatsia are strange plants - palmate leaves like outstretched hands which fall short of being attractive or so I always thought until last year in November, when almost everything else had started to fade and I noticed their flowers which had exploded like extra-ordinary pod forms with a sense of 1950's style about them, made me smile!

Fresh colours which aren't at all autumnal, and seem to fit the elegant forms of these odd umbrels...
























































...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Stinking Iris orange

Stinking Irises (Iris Foetidissima) have very quirky looking seedpods. Drawing these yesterday, it was difficult to see how the berries were still attached to the pods - they were hanging on at the very edges for dear life! The leaves seemed almost to be waving to me as I was drawing (or perhaps I'm just a bit over tired lately!).
I documented the delicate colours of the flowers when I drew them in June, also the pod colours in January when I came across them in an salt air dried state on a wintery walk at the beach. These vintage looking November colours from this garden specimen are as sampled below.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Spindle pod pink

Finally a spare moment in between printing to post the colours (again) of the Spindle tree. So named because its wood was traditionally used to make the spindles for spinning.
Spindly by nature as well as name, its a bit on the shabby side and not much to look at, until its structured four sided pods develop into a deeply vivid shade of pink, splitting wide open to reveal within shiny deep orange seeds - quite astonishing...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.