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52 playing cards in 52 weeks
52 Playing cards in 52 weeks - artist statement Susan Brisco It’s always a delight to watch the ever-changing forms of nature quietly appearing and slowly growing throughout the seasons. My work presented was inspired from observations and drawings made during nature...
Plants in Bloom: A reading list mapping the geographies of kinship in researching, making and understanding Plants as Ink, their unique patterns and blooms. . .
Plants in Bloom: A reading list mapping the geographies of kinship in researching, making and understanding Plants as Ink, their unique patterns and blooms. . . Reference Readings in a timeline Fieldwork BSBI Code of Conduct 2017 (bsbi.org) The Code sets out best...
Oxytocin – the human molecule
The more I research into the positive feelings of wellbeing when we are bathed in green spaces, the more I read about oxytocin, our human magic hormone... and it all happens via our visual and non-visual pathway in the brain! Oxytocin has many functions - it helps...
Fine art applications using natural inks – Seasonal Tonality and garlands
One of my aims of this project was to explore potential fine art applications of using the botanical inks. It seems that many artists and artisans use their botanical inks for dyeing fabrics and not many artists take botanical inks into a fine art application. My...
Responsible Foraging – 1 in 20 rule.
During this art-science project of making a natural botanical palette of my own using wild plants, I learned how to be a responsible forager as recommended by The Woodland Trust and BSBI Code of Conduct as proposed by the National History Museum. I became a more...
Our visual and non visual pathways -Rods and cones
The drawing above show just how complex the wiring is in our retina leading off to the optic nerve. As I've been familiarising myself into how we see and why green spaces instil in us beautiful feelings of wellbeing, it seems we have two ways of seeing - the...
The Living Colour – Green
The ancient green pigment, chlorophyll is nature's symbol of life. It has been in existence, here on earth for three billion years and is responsible for the beautiful living green palette we see all around us. Its hard to achieve a real 'plant-green' when...
Inventory of Botanical inks made by artist Susan Brisco
Inventory of inks (Feb – Dec) To date, I have foraged, harvested and made 34 botanical inks throughout the season. This number has quite surprised me! Each ink brings back a memory of a walk, a place, an experience and a story. For example, one day, a walk in Wales...
Issues of lightfastness with botanical inks – an experiment
Plants are reliant on sunlight for their existence. The sun determines their life cycle. Sunlight informs a plant to germinate, when to grow and ultimately, when to die off ready for its dormant period in the winter. When the spring arrives, warmer sunlight...
Why being in green spaces make us feel calmer
Being in green spaces helps us to feel calmer and less anxious which is good for our mental health and sense of wellbeing. According to an NHS report, people who spend at least two hours per week in nature are shown to have better general health and higher...
The Impact of colour on our central nervous system
How we React to colour and its Impact on our Central Nervous System. Rods and cones are photoreceptors found in abundance in the retina. The Rods are sensitive to the intensity of light whereas the cones are wonderful in that they give us our colour vision. Life ...
Conversations with Plants as ink🌱: Seaweed sargassum (brown macroalgae)
Conversations with Plants as ink🌱: Seaweed sargassum (brown macroalgae) I spend a lot of time by the seaside, walking along the beach and see so much seaweed washed up ! To explore a different ecosystem, I decided to make botanical seaweed ink using...
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