Today's Mailbox Haul

A friend of mine sent me coarse ground red earth pigment and ochre samples from Montana, they arrived today, so this is what I'll be working on, grinding the reddish-brown pigment until it is very fine using a muller. I'll then take some of the finely ground pigment, mix it with soy milk and will paint fabric swatches and allow to dry to see what the final color will be like. I'll do inchies for a challenge I’m participating in this week!

He sent me two other samples a green and a yellow, which I approved so he'll be sending me the yellow and green pigments next week to also grind down.

He also put some pine needles, horsemint, bison hair, and buckskin in the package with my pigment and ochres. My studio smells like the mountains of western Montana at the moment.

If I can get the pigment ground fine enough I'll make handmade pastels for drawing and painting with as well.

Cockle Burr Season is Here!

Oliver was supposed to get a bath last night, that didn't happen.

What was supposed to be bath time ended up an hours long panicked filled session of removing cockle burrs from Oliver's left eye, ears, nose, mouth, etc.  The one on his eye was the worst as tit was matted into his eyebrow hair and onto his face beneath the eye.

Notice the hack job on his left eyebrow. The right one will get trimmed when John gets home from work this evening, and the left one neatened up.

Oliver was in full panic mode trying to dig the burr out with his foot. I finally got him into a bear hug position so John could work on removing the burr.

John finally removed enough of the burr that I could use my Tim Holts craft scissors (Oliver won't let me near him with standard scissors) to cut the fur away, rather than try to fish out the tiny bits of burr. Our efforts to remove the burr bits was only upsetting him even more, to the point that he was growling at me.

Burrs are all gone now, I'll be going out to remove the cockle burr plant and dispose of it someplace where he cannot get into it again, and Ollie will get his bath tonight.