snow painting with plant pigments

This past weekend during the Montreal High Lights Festival, we participated in Nuit?áBlanche in the Griffintown?áCultural Corridor.?áIt was a great deal of fun to put our recent?áexperiments in Herbal Snow Painting to the test.

Despite the cold, we had many keen public?áparticipants join us in creating some snow paintings!

We began the day with a large canvas; on this we painted a tree and birds using alkanet and plantain, cabbage, nettles, blueberry, turmeric, coffee, beets, and hibiscus. We moved the activity along the expanse of our large snow-hill,?ástenciling?ásome simple leaf-shapes in amongst the poles and?ápilons that poked up through the snow. This intervention would hopefully give people pause on their daily walks.

The Community Participation area was a lot of fun to?áfill?áwith boldly painted graphic designs.

There was a little?áshed at the end of this (regularly a parking lot) space, and it housed a fibre arts installation. The fibre artists in this shed were a little frustrated that people were not making their way to their exhibit, so we went about remedying that problem.

Patterned, stenciled leaves, boldly painted arrows, and beautiful colours glowing in the snow enticed people to enter this parking-lot space. They could see that it wasn’t just barren and empty; it was alive and vibrant with activity, colour, and interesting smells!

We encouraged people to try out snow painting for themselves, and we had many takers. Some very beautiful temporary paintings were made that day, and we took great joy in documenting?áthe activity.

We will be continuing with our Snow Paintings. We will paint around the city, and host some workshops?áon the subject?áin the very near future (before the snow melts!)

One concern we have with sharing the work in public,?áis that?áunsuspecting people might assume that the work was made with toxic spraypaints. To?ádeal with?áthis, in the future we will tag our creations with a stenciled “fleurbain” signature, and?áthe words “herbal pigments”.

Hopefully over time people will recognise this means that?áthe pigments we use are not only non-toxic and natural, but are even downright edible.

Keep your eyes open, Montreal, for renegade Snow Paintings… and keep your eyes on our Workshops Page for upcoming events!

To see the full album of photos from this day, go to our facebook page.

Natasha Henderson and Tammy Schmidt, Montreal