Paint from Plants: Lake Pigments

It was only recently that the creation of the materials used to make art was separated from the artmaking process. Learn how to make your paint with plants from your environment in this fun hands-on class! Using natural materials to create artwork can be a great way to connect with your ecosystem.

This class is designed to re-incorporate art supply making into an artmaking practice. We will create paints using a process called laking, which uses natural dye baths to create plant-based pigment that can be used to make watercolor paint, tempera, oil paint, and more.

We will make our own watercolor palettes using plants, and learn how to turn a dye bath into powdered pigment. We'll work with local dyes in this class, which is part of our Art + Agriculture Series. Art + Agriculture classes explore the connections between art, agriculture, and ecology and the ways that these connections build a sense of place. Check out more from this series here.

This class is taught by Alchemy staff member and artist Katey Rissi.

Registration: Please register early if you are able, as it helps us to assure that classes meet their minimums in order to run! If you register more than three weeks before this class begins, a 20% early bird discount will automatically be applied to your ticket at checkout.

A Note on Ticket Pricing: We are offering sliding scale tickets in order to keep our classes accessible to as many community members as possible. There are three price tiers. Sustaining tickets help us continue to invest in programming. Full price tickets cover the costs associated with running classes. Accessibility tickets are priced below what it costs for us to run a class. If the cost of a full price ticket is a hardship, we encourage you to purchase a sliding scale ticket. If you can pay the full price or sustaining price, please choose that option so we can keep providing arts programming to the community.

Tuition Assistance: Tuition assistance is available for Alchemy classes and workshops if finances are a barrier. Apply for tuition assistance here.

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