Found and Ground

It was only a matter of time until the foraging craze turned to paints – watercolours, in this case. Why make your own paints? Per artist, instructor, and author Ross, making your own paints offers customization and self-reliance, with earthy pigments tested as stable, relatively lightfast, and long-lasting. Ross focuses on her native UK, incorporating a few instances of unique pigments found in places like New Mexico and California. The philosophy of ethical foraging is embedded everywhere: gather only what’s needed; avoid contaminated areas, and wear protective gear; stay clear of protected spaces. She carefully scopes out several types of land (beach, countryside, woodland, rural roads, edge lands and wastelands, fresh water) and the potential hues to be found in them, with specific examples like acorn caps and birch bark, cherry plum and damson sap. Paint recipes are plentiful and include step-by-step photographs for processes like refining materials and developing gouache, glair, and even inks. Look to the included watercolour galleries of artist works for inspiration. Nature repurposed is nature enhanced.

-- Barbara Jacobs * Booklist, July Issue *

This book is beautifully put together. Her writing is engaging and easily followed. The imagery is lovely. Both are inspiring. I’m sure the foraging and processes will take time to learn and to perfect but I look forward to trying some of them out. I hope I can make it look as easy and create as beautiful images as Caroline Ross. The connections to nature and art being woven together in a stunning tapestry for the beginner and the already established creative. This book works for the artist, the historian, the experimental archaeologist or anyone just interested in learning something new, environmentally friendly or creative.

-- Isla Scott * Customer Review *

Artist, Caroline Ross, uses wild and homemade materials to create her artwork and in her new book, Found and Ground, she shares her knowledge of how to paint naturally, plastic-free and with no waste. Create professional-quality paints using colour foraged from nature, and find natural substitutes for watercolour, gouache and tempera, as well as innovative vegan 'egg paint' alternatives.

The book is suited to all levels of experience, including complete beginners and contains step-by-step instructions to finding a more sustainable way of painting as well as injecting fresh ideas for readers who find themselves stuck in a rut with their artwork.

* Leisure Painter, October 2023 *

This is at its heart a no-nonsense guide to creating some really satisfying art materials with what you have on hand in your life. No fancy expensive tools necessary, although Caroline covers those too if you want to use them. I for one have learned volumes from this book about preparing my mineral pigments, something I have probably not devoted as much time to as I should. Her overview of binders/painting mediums too is exceptional and I think really useful for those who want to lean into utilizing what is already available around them without purchasing dedicated painting mediums.

Even beyond the instructional content of her book, it’s just the most beautiful tapestry of images and words about our journey to find our palette in this world. It’s also a discussion of place in the landscape, leaning into abundance, of finding community in the human and nonhuman and of learning to read the landscape of, as Caroline taught me, the made and the unmade in our search for materials.

-- Carrie Wintergreen Berry * @mmmordere on Instagram *

Caroline is refreshingly honest in showing there is no easy way as she details all the necessary stages from stone to paint. There are instructions for making simple water colours, artists’ quality paints and gouache. She shows how to make ink from oak galls and explores a range of mark-making tools and painting surfaces.

Even if you decide that making paint the old way is not for you, this is still a lovely and inspiring book.

-- Heather Seddon, Eden Valley and Online Guilds * Guild of Weavers, Spinners, Dyers *

What an enthralling and uplifting book! I cannot recommend Caroline Ross's 'Found and Ground' enough [...] Caroline manages to combine inspiration verging on the magical with practicality, generous information, and a heart-warming gentleness and encouragement.

-- Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, Arts & Entertainment Editor * The Moorland