Botanical Ink Making & Screen Printing

This three-day workshop, led by textile artist Sarah Diver, will teach participants how to make their own inks from natural extracts, waste materials, and foraged plants from the gardens here at Forgan Arts Centre. Participants will then use the inks to make their own screen prints using stencil screen printing.

Day 1: Demonstrations in how to make inks using onion skins, nettles, flowers, and traditional dye plants such as weld and madder. Following the break, participants will be introduced to the process of stencil screen printing using their inks and sample stencils so they can experiment and see how the process of printing works.

Day 2: Participants will learn how to roll their samples up for steaming which will fix the dyes to the material. The rest if the day will focus on creating new original stencils for their final design. Participants will be encouraged to experiment and try new things.

Day 3: Participants will then make more of their own inks and learn the chemistry and effects of modifiers such as iron, soda ask, and citric acid to alter colour and hue. Participants will use their final stencils and inks to screen print their final design.

All participants will create a tea-towel sized piece of fabric which they will have designed and printed themselves!