Natural Dyeing of the 18th Century, in a Modern Setting: Classical Natural Dyes at your Fingertips

Create stunning colors from plans, inspired by the recipes of the old masters, adjusted to fit a modern dye kitchen.

Day one: 

On the first day, you learn about the systems and economics of the 18th-century natural dye industry. Specifically in the South of France, which was the leading economic force of that century.

We learn about the master dyers of the era and their recipe books.

Practical instructions:

• Correct cleaning of natural fibers

• Water ratios

• WOF calculations

• Record keeping and building a library.

• Practice and test: cleaning the materials you will be using for the rest of the trials.

• Color: Learn how to set up an indigo bath

Day two

We will dye base colors of different shades of blue according to 18th-century shade cards. 

• milky blue

• azure blue

• Kings blue

• You will learn how to dye correctly, and how to maintain your vat for continued dyeing.

• You will learn about the mordanting process for wool, and we will mordant part of our fabric for the following steps.

Day three

The yellows

You will learn a classical mordant bath for our wool fabric.

We will create a classical weld dye bath and a buckthorn berry bath and dye our yellow samples.

We will create 

• Lemon Yellow

• Warm Yellow

• Vert Gay (cheerful Green)

• Vert d’Herbe (herb green)

Day four

Going all out with Madder and Cochineal

Today you will learn how to create vibrant reds with madder

We will create Purples by over-dyeing our blue samples 

We will create ORANGE by over-dyeing yellow samples

• Madder red

• Scarlet red

• Golden Cinnamon

• Violet

• Lila

Day Five

Greys, taupe and more. 

Learn how to reuse your dye baths and combine them with mordants to create even more stunning shades.

We will finish our dyeing and collect and cut all the samples to make your sample collection for future reference.

Using common bio-waste found in your yard or your garden, along with Asian fibers, workshop participants will produce a portfolio of beautiful, high-quality papers, appropriate for book arts, collage, printmaking and other inventive, artful applications.

Starting with a thorough discussion of the many qualities handmade papers can carry, students will consider how different fibers and processing decisions influence the physical properties of the final sheet. A simple approach to Asian papermaking as well as ways of setting up a papermaking studio in your home or classroom capable of producing strong, well-considered papers without expensive equipment will be covered. Simple plans for building equipment as well and many samples of garden papers will be shared.

Students will leave with the information necessary to create pop-up guerrilla papermaking sites wherever they are, and a lovely portfolio of papers made during the week!