The Bleeding Heart Tree (aka the Red Alder)
Exploring Red Alder Pigment
I am a colour scavenger. And here’s another scavenging story:
While walking the dog, I came across a pile of recently cut down trees. BC Hydro crews have been busy trimming trees that are growing too close to the wires. What immediately caught my eye was the freshly exposed heartwood of a fallen Red Alder tree. Against the grey and green, and mud-brown of the pacific northwest winter, the bright orange wood was striking!
A few years ago, after clearing deadfall from our yard, which included a rotten Alder tree, my jeans became stained with deep orangey-red marks that would not wash out! I remember thinking that it was very similar to blood, and it’s why I’ve nicknamed it the Bleeding Heart tree.
This was now my chance to collect some bark and try to make paint! So I sped-walked home, grabbed a bag and a knife, and then sped-walked back! I was excited! I collected a couple of generous handfuls of bark.
I boiled the bark in a big pot and within a few minutes the water was turning a very deep orange colour! This is always a good sign. The below picture shows the rich bark extraction:
I was so in love with the colour of the extraction that I was afraid that the lake pigment process was going to alter the beautiful colour. Lake pigments alter the chemistry of the extraction, and this can *sometimes* alter the colour. This can be disappointing. So I reserved some of the initial bark extraction and SLOWLY simmered it to reduce it to make ink. The below is a picture of the concentrated extraction:
Long paint story short… Red Alder is one of my new favourites! I say this a lot. So many new favourites! But it’s exciting to find a LOCAL source of such beautiful dye. It makes a gorgeous ink and the lake pigment process made a generous amount of pigment which I mixed up into watercolours. I also have leftover dried pigment that I’ve added to my pigment library. While mixing in the watercolour binder, I was able to shift colours with pH modifications. I wasn’t sure this would work but when I added citric acid, the colour turned a brighter shade of orange.
In conclusion, I will definitely be harvesting er, scavenging, more Red Alder bark. I’d love to add this watercolour to my upcoming paint palettes that I will be selling in the new year. I’ve decided to offer a limited series of homemade watercolours.
It felt good to honour this tree. When I saw it lying on the roadside, I was sad. Its life was cut short because of electrical wires. My family always calls me a bleeding heart and in the past, I felt some kind of shame about this nickname. Like, I have some inherent weakness. But it sucks when nature (especially animals!) suffers because of humans. So go ahead and call me a bleeding heart! It’s no wonder I feel a sense of affinity with the Bleeding Heart tree.
As always, I thank-you for reading.
Jo
