Painting with Plant Pigments

My best friend has three mulberry trees in his garden, and delicious as fresh mulberries are, the flesh of the fruits is extremely delicate, and the juice somewhat persistent, hence why they are rarely seen for sale. I wanted to see how pigmented the juice was, and I have a childlike pleasure in painting a thing in the thing, so painting oak leaves and acorns in oak gall ink, or in this case, painting a mulberry in mulberry juice.

I initially used a Khadi paper postcard which took the juice – or is it paint now? – really well as the handmade rag paper is like a sponge. It’s only 140gsm and I have some really thick 320gsm squares so I will try those next time. Then I tried in my multimedia sketchbook, which is smooth-papered and grey, but I could add white pencil highlights which was a nice touch.

In spite of using the ripest on the point of disintegrating berries, the tone is still in the crimson and red, rather than the deep purple of a properly ripe mulberry.

Inspired by this, I tried with brambles, again choosing the ripest, darkest berries I could find. I only used my sketchbook so I’m not sure how it would work on handmade or even white watercolour paper so I will experiment further.

As you can see, the juice, although darker in colour, is not as saturated hence the paler tones, but I like the look and again, added some white highlights for contrast.

Elderberries next…watch this space.