Natural Willow Charcoal
Charcoal making off the land. We trimmed branches from the farms olive trees, mindful of the branches baring fruit (of course), stripped excess leaves, chopped, wrapped and burned on a controlled mornings fire. Later unwrapping packages of fine, dense and completely natural charcoal, which we later used to plot our mural and draft our illustration journals.
Our first mini project during my ‘Sustanable Rural Development’ placement was to make our own willow charcoal, as it is a sustanable way to create a creative medium from cut tree branches. This was a new process for me, Id never made my own charcoal, yet to buy from craft shops can be pricy. Therefor this skill will be useful for the future, and to not see fires as just a barbeque, furthermore this skill would be useful as charcoal is a medium I prefer to work with for its loose and easy movement.
To do this process we first pruned varying widths of non-fruiting branches from the farms olive trees. We them stripped them of their leaves and excess twigs to leave a bare stick for the next step in processing. We then took the branches to Sarahs studio to cut and prepare them for wrapping. Cutting the branches to lengths similar to a pencil we organised the cut branches into size ordered piles, to then divide and wrap in a few tinfoil layers.
The next morning (as fires are only allowed before noon) we started our bake-fire. Putting the carefully wrapped packaged on the fire with a protective glove. They sat in thre flames for a few hours until the flam extinguished, leaving the tinfoil packages for a further 24hours to cool down. Once all the waiting was done we eagerly opened our charcoal gifts to find a 90% success rate. With the exception of some which has smouldered beyond salvage, the burn was a success. Unwrapping foil after foil of beautifully delicate oil tree willow charcoal.
The whole processes was very education and insightful to see and to learn how to work with the land to create workable creative mediums which are sustainable and closed loop.
As the placement progressed we found ourselves using this charcoal in various planning and stamping situations, along with juniper charcoal we were gifted from local wood turner Antonio Perez.
