Last Summer someone gave mit this awesome book about paint made from plants. There ist really fascinating stuff in it. Did you know that your can make yellow paint from apple twigs? Or red paint from beetroot? Well, no surprise there ...

In the fall I did some experiments with elderberries. I made some plant sap and ink with the juice from the berries, alum and gum arabic. I dried the sap in a shell.





Now it’s hard and crystalline and it glitters.
But it’s still soluble in water which means I can paint with it!

Last week I did a greeting card in with I used the shell.



It’s a really great violet which does funny things in the process of drying. The red dye consists of Anthocyanin which ist sensible to acid and lye.
The fresh, wet paint is more reddish.





But as it dries it turns more into a violet shade.



I apologise for the blurry pictures (and the missing frame). I had a row with the camera ...



What do you think? Should I do (and tell you) more of this?