I've already tried ashes as a textural component in acrylic painting [blog here], to take it a step further I've been itching to try making natural pigments to create watercolour paints using materials and plants from the garden or local fields. Thing is, I use watercolour in liquid form so my own experiments are not quite as instructions seem to be online. I believe most of those refer to watercolour pans which are small, solid dried blocks.

I woke around the same time to a fiery sunrise, an orange ball of fire creeping over the hill. Nature and art entwined as ever, and really loving these colours.

Experimenting goes both ways, it takes you right back to youthful play and forward into more mature states of creativity. That's how it has transpired for me in the last several months. January and February have been major months of just seeing how my mood takes me, what emerges, but without any reliance on trance. It has been a very conscious exercise in creating.