Sold Out! Eco Printing Workshop

This program is sold out! Please check our calendar for more upcoming events and programming this fall.

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 though 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, and as time permits, fabric samples to take home.  

Your registration fee includes all instruction, equipment, and materials for the workshop. Light snacks, soft drinks and a boxed lunch from Malvern Buttery is included! Please check your email confirmation to make a menu selection. If you are feeling unwell or experiencing Covid-19 symptoms, please stay home and stay well.

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.