Yellow Flame Brown
Made with the bark of the Peltophorum pterocarpum
Our handmade watercolours are all available on our Etsy store.
At the park connector behind our current studio, there is a playground sheltered by a few of these tall Yellow Flame trees; they feel like tree guardians, holding space and shelter for people to enjoy. When you meet this plant in her flowering stage, it becomes apparent why she is coined the “Yellow Flame”, because the crown becomes decked out with blooms of yellow, papery petaled flowers.
We first learnt about this plant’s colouring potential from published literature on dye plants in Indonesia. According to Threads of Life, the bark is one of the three plant materials used to create a yellow-brown dye known as soga, applied on batik textiles in Central Java.
As an ink, we have managed to make varied tones from yellow, reddish-brown, dark brown, orange-red through varying the boiling duration and controlling the pH of the solution. Other factors that influence the outcome includes the usage of fresh or dried bark, and we have also observed very subtle difference when working with younger branches.
This has become a classic source of brown inks and pigments for us, due to its reliability and its abundance as an ornamental tree cultivated on our roadsides.
