Our nature preserves are open to the public 365 days per year from sunrise to sunset, providing natural places that offer peace and respite for all. Willistown Conservation Trust owns and manages Hartman Meadow, Ashbridge, Kirkwood, Kestrel Hill and Rushton Woods Preserves. We maintain these lands to preserve and enhance … Learn more about our nature preserves.
Eco Printing Retreat with Muse Artisan Boutique
Botanical artist, Lisa Dawn White, will walk students through how to prepare natural fibers to receive the botanical dyes found in an assortment of local plants through a contact printing process called ecoprinting. In this introductory class, Lisa will share the techniques she uses to:
-Prepare (i.e., mordant) the fibers to receive the dyes and ensure permanency
-Select and Prepare the best plants to create prints
-Place the plants according to their moon and sun sides
-Properly roll up a fiber bundle
-Set up and tend to a steam pot
At the end of this day-long immersion class, students will get to participate in each other’s “big reveals!” Students will create two freshly ecoprinted silk scarves to take home.
HOW DOES ECO PRINTING WORK?
During the ecoprint process, botanicals (leaves, flowers, roots) transfer their dyes to natural fibers (cotton, linen, silk, wool) that have been specially prepared with metallic salts during a mordanting process – the mordanting assists in the transfer and retaining of the botanical dyes contained in the plants and allows them to become “fixed” onto the fiber. The imprint is developed when a tight bundle is created by rolling the botanicals into the fibers. At varying stages of this process, other natural, plant based, or synthetic dyes can be used to deposit additional colors onto the fiber. Not all botanicals will deposit color, some will instead leave a negative imprint, or resist, further adding to the overall abstract patterning that typically results. Finally, the bundles are steamed during which time the heat sets the transfer. The ecoprinting process may be thought of as equal parts art and science – no two pieces will ever be the exact same!
ABOUT THE ARTIST To create her botanical arts, Lisa Dawn White peruses nature’s classrooms of forest, fields and gardens with a playful sense of “what will I find today?” Through Lisa’s work, you may observe the language of nature as evidenced through her repeating patterns and symbols. Lisa holds a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and a master’s degree in horticulture —combined with a certification in Homeopathy, her interest in how humans use plants for food, fiber, medicine, art, decoration, healing and beauty is longstanding. Her line of botanical arts includes mixed media collage, pressed flower jewelry, ecoprinted textiles and digitally rendered wearable art. Along with having designed for catalogs and published articles in magazines, Lisa has had her work carried in over one hundred shops and galleries throughout North America. She now also offers her botanical arts line via her Etsy shop, LinenandLotus.
YOU CAN NOW VIEW AND PURCHASE ALL OF HER BOTANICAL WARES LOCALLY, AT HER NEW BOUTIQUE IN GLENMOORE, PA (IN LUDWIG’S VILLAGE AT THE INTERSECTION OF RTE 100 AND 401) FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: Muse Artisan Boutique
