Chartreuse

Faint colours from an uncertain spring

“Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

―Robert Frost

Canadian maple blossoms: kind of with no point of focus because I am an amateur photographer but I can get enough of tree flowers.

For some reason I’ve been really noticing and loving the way that trees flower this spring. And particularly noticing the maple trees. Canadian Maple: makers of the solid flooring of bowling alleys and the hard hardwood of American baseball bats but when you spend some time watching them they get complicated and there is something in their acid lime nuclear little flowers that fall from the sky and land on everything and get stuck in the windshields of the cars no one is driving and the red casings that these flowers emerge from. And then the tiny little maple keys at first like their own little flowers and then red and purple and green. And the way the leaves when they first enter the world have a strange leathery stickiness like a butterfly when it first emerges slightly alien and with its whole new brain that somehow remembers its old brain. All that glow and the fallen blossoms swept into gutters of course makes me wonder if there is a way to experiment with this green-gold.

as usual the beautiful plate is by Akai Ceramics Studio.

Pine pollen shaken off the branch and mixed with contact lens solution and pine gum. I briefly got distracted I need some grey paper to try this strange paint on.

photo by George Tyebcho

Virginia Woolf The Years, 1937

I made these two inktests with just the brightest blossoms of the maple trees outside my house alum and saltwater and boiling achieved this light wash.

Looking more golden in the afternoon light.

This book is for people who can afford lime green Mercedes.

Also did everyone get last week’s Pinkish newsletter. I wrote about stollen crab apple blossoms just follow that link above if you missed it. And please send along and leave comments. I could have written forever about that colour.

I might have to write more about pink. There were so many interesting avenues and comments and I am now germinating some Malabar Lettuce seeds! Please spread the word about this news letter it aims at starting a colour revolution. I am aiming for every Friday evening. How does that sound? Is this newsletter too long? Jason