found and ground

summer's foraging along the shores of the Yukon River yielded a few surprising finds... burnt boards, rusty square nails, rusted cables, a few earth pigments, old brick shards and some things that piqued my curiosity from the moment I first saw them shimmering black in the river

it was a small secluded area, an abundance of taller grass growing near the shore

pushing through, I found a small clear spot where I could kneel at the edge of the river bank and as I looked into the water I noticed these two "rocks" right away

I'd never seen shiny blackish rocks such as these... rough areas and smooth, a touch of dull tan colour here and there

later that day I uploaded a photo of them to Google and was informed they were not meteorites

that made me laugh... the thought of them dropping from the sky hadn't crossed my mind at all

over the next half-hour I had a "discussion" with the AI function on the Google search page and through that learned these are called "Boiler Clinkers"

 most likely coming from the boiler of one of the Yukon paddlewheeler boats that ran on the river between  1879 to 1955

made up of fused ash and non-combustible particles, they are a by-product of the burning of coal used to fuel some of the ships on their journeys up and down the river

usually shovelled overboard, in order to keep the grates clear, they can be found at many points along the river still

I found these in Whitehorse, at the old shipyards

a few hammer strokes brought the one on the left to heap of small particles which were further ground with a mortar and pestle

and ground,

and ground

they probably could have done with yet more grinding but I was eager to see what colour they would make so on to my glass plate a spoonful went and with a few dribbles of gum arabic solution, the mulling began

and continued,

and continued

eventually I could resist no more... a few swipes on a piece of watercolour paper showed me I could get a quite dense black and lighten that to beautiful greyed taupe with additional water

then more water and another piece of rougher watercolour paper showed me there were some nice granulating effects to be had

colour, richer and more varied than I'd hoped for

amazing to think I can paint a Yukon scene with a small piece of it!

the next find I want to work with is the brick shards, found in the same place

and the story continues...

take care,

Jillayne