painting rawhide

[Nagi]

I was over on Tara Prindle's site (Native Tech) earlier today. In her section on porcupine quilling, she has a page on natural dyes that includes some plant/vegetable dyes that give blues. If any of those plants were indigenous to the area the color you're trying to recreate was used in, it would stand to reason that you might be able to either make a paint directly from those plants or feed the plants to the ducks.

Nagi
PS: URL to Native Tech is http://www.nativetech.org ... at least that's how I got there!

[Iron Wood]

Thanks All!
Just wanted to thank everyone for their enthusiastic, educational, and light hearted responses. There are several of you're ideas that I may try to use(here ducky, eat this blue bread). I am very interested in using the old time materials, and methods. I want to see what will really work, and how this stuff was originally used. The old ways aren't always the easy ways, but they are but they sure are neat to learn.
Curtis

[whirlwind]

Yellow Dye: Years ago when I was making(attemping to make, breaking was the more accurate term) my first Osage Orange bow, I borrowed one of my mothers tea towels to drape over the stave in a boiling pot on top of the stove. When the towel was removed, behold a brilliant yellow color. Mom was not impressed with my discovery. I've used this dye on porcupine quills and horse hair. It seems to work very well. Just take some of the inner golden colored wood, shave it up and boil it for a while. There you have it. Sounds like Hickory will do they same, but I've never tried it. This is to make Dye. Paint is a whole different ballgame. It seems to me as if the old time dyes were usually vegetable materials, while most of the paints were minerals, except pond algae, and of course our favorite, duck poop.


Whirlwind