Natural Dye Colors of Europe: Making a Color Blanket with Elin Noble

$30 donation for non-members (cash or check collected on site) / Free for students who are WSNF members.

The term, Color Blanket or Swatch Blanket, is used in the textile industry when one tests a range of colors that are woven in bands with the same set of colors in the weft. This test creates subtle colors in a multitude of blocks. Elin translates this structure of color overlays to natural dyes painted on a piece of large cloth.

Using natural dye extracts, you will create more than 100 colors on a white cloth you bring (cotton, linen, or silk) and more than 100 additional colors on a light blue indigo-dyed cloth. These two Color Swatch Blankets will be created using three mordants (and mixtures of them) and a broad palette of dyes.

The Color Swatch Blankets will become great inspiration and a reference for your future projects. As time allows, students will be introduced to polychromatic printing: applying mordants through printing, discharging, and overprinting prior to dyeing. This technique allows for extremely fine details as well as controlled placement of colors and imagery.

A Student Supplies List describing what students are required to bring will be provided upon registration.

https://www.elinnoble.com/

We are thrilled to welcome Elin Noble to our Berkeley studio in August as our 2025 Summer Resident Artist. Elin is an internationally recognized master dyer and artist as well as author.

Decades of meticulous work and research on dyes and resist dyeing techniques let Elin “think like a dye.” She says, “We may want a dye to behave a certain way, but it’s not about us. It’s about the dye.” Elin studied in France with our master natural dye phytochemist, botanist, and historian, Michel Garcia, and later with a Danish dye chemist, Joy Boutrup. Elin built her knowledge from a practical understanding of dye chemistry and an artist’s curiosity to explore her materials to the fullest. Her approach is well-organized, with attention to detail, patience, and the ability to embrace surprises.

Elin’s trademark style is to dye large swaths of fabric as if painting–adding and subtracting dyes, layering, and building.

For more information, please contact info[@]shibori.org .

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