Madison Woods

Chelsea, those are super neat!

Hi, I've been a member of the forum for a long while. Usually I'm posting in the artist forums. I make paints from the pigments in the rocks here. I've recently become a licensed realtor and I'd love to help you find a property suitable for a sustainable, permaculture life in northwest-northcentral Arkansas. My husband and I live six miles from pavement in the Ozark mountains and we love the rural lifestyle. It's definitely not for everyone, but very rewarding for those who love living in close proximity with nature. While I don't practice a formal sort of permaculture, I have learned a lot about rural life, organic gardening in terraces on this rocky ground, and what kinds of elements are wonderful to find in a land intended to provide a sustainable lifestyle here. My online name is Madison Woods, but with real estate, I have to use my real name, Roxann Riedel. So I put on different hats for different tasks, lol. If you'd like to find property in Madison, Newton, Boone, Carrol counties let me know. Madison and Newton have more forested unimproved land and improved properties with abundant forests, while Boone and Carrol have some of that too but it's easier to find more small-town, large and small-farm, pasture lands there. While it might seem odd to call this a 'plus', there are a lot of places out here that still don't have cell phone coverage. That was actually a criteria when I was searching for our land here now. We do have Starlink for internet, but no cell signal for miles. I think it's a good indicator for population density of an area.

Here's my virtual card for art and real estate:


Madison or Roxann, or MadRox :)
madison@wildozark.com

The latest painting to get off of my easel.

Just finished the first one for 2024. The frame is one I picked up from our local recycle center:

If you like to see progression, here's my page for this painting: Creekside with Sycamores

I've been scrolling through and enjoying all of the posts made to this thread since I last visited a while back. I love seeing everyone's artwork. 2023 was a year of experimenting with oil paints that I made from our rocks and a couple of the more lightfast plants. Here's a collage of it all, though in the preview it doesn't look like my image is going to show up. If you'd like to see individual images please visit  https://www.wildozark.com/unique-art-by-madison-woods/, my portfolio page at my website. Merry Christmas, End of Year, Start to the Coldest (or warmest if you're south of the equator) Months to everyone!
by Madison Woods, on Flickr

Anna Merkwelt wrote:***
What is the consistency to aim for when making the watercolour binder with gum arabic?  Are you thinning it as far as possible (watery) or should it still have some body?
***edit... I'm withdrawing this Q.  The answer I'm learning is "it depends", obviously.  :)  

I do a swatch test to see if the binder was adequate, and that will only be useful to you after you've tried different ratios to see how the differences manifest. But, what I look for is rich enough color that doesn't rub off or smear once the paint has dried. At least with gum Arabic, if you use too much gum, the paint is hard to rewet once you've made it and put it ina  pan. The binder I use for watercolors is gum Arabic, water, and honey. And 3 drops of clove essential oil to each bottle I make. The honey makes it easier to rewet so you can use the paint later. But too much honey makes it sticky. The clove oil helps keep it from getting moldy while the paint is drying in the pans.

I would imagine that you'd still need the honey or some other humectant with any other gum that you'll use like the sap from your shrub. But I don't know for sure. That'll be something to experiment with.

In my tests, if the paint rubs into the surrounding paper of the swatch once it's dry, I needed more gum. If the paint doesn't dry without being tacky, I needed less honey. Unfortunately, until the binder is made, you can't test it as a paint binder. I usually make several bottles of it when I do, so if the swatch test fails, I dump it all back into a pot and adjust the ratios and try again. Once it's good, I 'can' the bottles just as I would if I were making jelly in a water bath and they last on the shelf for a very long time. Once I open a bottle, I'll keep it in the refrigerator, but they last a long time on the shelf after opened, too.

Anna Merkwelt wrote:Oooh, this sounds like fun!
Making paint entirely from the land I live on appeals to me.  Very much so.  I'm eager to try some of the methods discussed here.  I've been using a rock and an old tile to grind stones for pigment, and sometimes using water to settle out the bits.  This has been adequate for my needs; adding to clay for color and temper, and to store-bought wall paint.  Any bits that make it through aren't big enough to bother me.  In an art paint, I know it would annoy the crap out of me.

Has anyone played with using pine resin in their paints?  I'm assuming not a great choice for watercolor, since it's not water soluble... though perhaps there could be some magical intermediary.  Either way, I'm not very good with watercolors, and would prefer making a paint I'd want to use.  Also, I have a lot of pine resin and love working with it.

I think experiment and see what works for you! Pine resin might work as a stiffener for oil paints, but I have never tried it to see how it might work. I'd be interested to hear about your experiences, whatever you do. Sometimes having the grit in the paint works well in some applications for art, too, so it doesn't have to be a smooth paint. I do wash mine in water to settle out the heavier bits when I am making paint, though, because I do like the smoother paint for the most part. And I add clay and limestone to the indigo I recently tried, and found that it helps give it body that I like.

One day I'd like to tint wall paint for painting my own walls with the earthy colors of the land around me.

r ranson wrote:When I work with indigo or woad, I should wear gloves, but they always have holes in them, so I don't.  kneeding the woad was the worse and my hands were green for about 2 days.  But I didn't mind as it's only temporary and I got to play with woad.  

Indigo stain washes off my hands within 12 hours - but I'm on a farm so I'm doing a proper hand wash (20 seconds and lots of olive oil soap) at least once an hour to protect against some of the less pleasant things chickens can give us.  

I can live with it for a few days. But, if I'm blue-or-green handed, if I time it just right, then they'll serve as conversation starter at my studio on a Saturday, haha!

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:I have a few woad plants growing in a pot. When I saw the video, I understood my plants still need to grow a lot!
And then I saw what he did with the leaves ... I hope someone else will do that for me It's okay my nails are sometimes a little dark along the edges (from garden work), but I don't want to have blue hands!

LOL, when I make blue stain from the Asiatic dayflower petals, my hands get pretty blue unless I'm wearing gloves. So, if I end up with blue hands whenever I finally get to try this, I'll just live with blue hands for a while, hahaha. I think the woad and indigo stains for a lot longer than the dayflower petals do, though.

r ranson wrote:  The method he uses is more traditional and less chemical than the ones I tried.  

Thanks for sharing. I’m definitely interested in more traditional and less chemical.