Today I ground my own green from a neem tree
Today I ground my own green from the neem tree behind the house. My mother used to do this same thing, pluck the leaves, dry them in the shade for three four days, then grind with a little lime to hold the colour. The shade it gives is not bright, not like the market green from a tube. It is dull, dusty, like the underside of a leaf. But when you put it on the paper next to the vermilion it wakes up somehow. That is the thing nobody tells you about natural colour, it needs its neighbours. Alone it looks dead. Put it beside the red, beside the lampblack, and it starts to talk.
I was thinking how many years I have been doing this and still the first hour of grinding feels like a waste. Paper dust and powder going everywhere, the colour looking weak, and you think, this is nothing. Then you mix it and you remember. Every single time the same doubt. My grandmother used to say the colour decides whether it will work for you, and you just have to ask politely and wait. She was right, I think.
Maybe that is also the whole lesson of this art. You cannot rush the leaf.🙏
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This is lovely, and I know exactly what you mean about natural colour being dull until it's beside something. That's the whole trick, na? I've spent ages trying to mix a green that works and then realising the paint itself isn't the problem, it's that I was asking it to do everything alone. Put a dead-looking earth tone next to a bright one and suddenly it has a personality.
My grandmother used to do something similar with marigold for a yellow, always for the rangoli and the puja, never for paper. I never thought to try it myself until recently. Did the neem hold on the paper okay, or does it fade much? I'd love to see what it does on a proper watercolour sheet rather than just hearing about it.
the marigold thing got me, my grandmother was the same with plants for colour, always for food and cloth, never for anything I was making. took me years to realise the same plants she used could go in my glazes. and yeah, exactly that, colour is never a solo act. I've pulled pieces out of the kiln that looked like nothing, grey and sad, and then set them next to something bright and suddenly they're the best thing in the room. the clay equivalent of what you're saying.
did the neem hold on paper or did it fade on you? I've had natural stuff shift on me in a week, curious if it lasted.
Your grandmother and my mother would have understood each other completely, ji. Same hands, same plants, same way of thinking. Food and cloth first, always. The painting came after, like it was the last thing the colour was meant for.
And what you said about the kiln, that gave me good feeling. It is the same in painting. I have kept a piece for weeks thinking it is finished and good for nothing, then one day I put it beside another and suddenly I see it fresh. The colour was waiting for its neighbour all that time.
About the fading. The neem with lime, it holds decent. Two years now on that paper and still there, though it has gone a little paler, like it is breathing shallow. But natural green is a stubborn thing in some ways and weak in others. The secret is the leaf must be fully dry before you grind, and not too much lime or it eats the colour from inside. If I can give one tip, it is this. What plant are you getting your green from now? If it is shifting on you in a week I will tell you honestly which ones are worth the trouble and which ones are better left for the cloth.
You have understood it exactly, ji. Natural colour is not a lone singer, it is made for the company. This lesson my mother taught me when I was small, but I was slow to learn it. I used to think the colour itself was at fault. No, the fault was in me, asking it to stand alone.
The marigold for rangoli, that is how it should be. Those yellows are meant for the floor and the threshold, not the paper. But you are right to try it on paper also, the old families used it that way before the tube colours came. The neem on paper, yes, it holds fine, but you must grind it fine like you grind atta, and the lime must be small amount only, or it will eat the paper after some years. I have paintings from twenty years ago still showing the green, only a little faded, like the memory of a tree.
Do not give up on your yellow. Mix it with a pinch of turmeric if the marigold is too weak. Tell me how it goes on the paper. 😊