How to grow a Natural Dye Garden

Make pigments from flowers and plants

Pigment & Paintmaking Workshops

Handmade Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks Painting & Sketching

Which paper is best for writing with (Natural) inks?

17th January 2023

Paper is a versatile medium produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibers extracted from wood, fabric rags, grasses, or other plant sources in water. The water is then drained through a fine mesh to leave the fiber evenly distributed on the surface, followed by couching, pressing, and drying. There are many different types of papers available today. The range of papers that work well with water- and alcohol-based natural inks is too vast for this article to explore. In…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye Garden?-Part VII

10th November 2022

This is the final post in my natural dye garden series, as the gardening season has come to an end with the arrival of autumn. My natural dye garden served as both a teaching space and a very tranquil and reinvigorating environment for me. It is time to reflect on the previous season’s accomplishments, put the garden to bed, and prepare it for the next season. I learned several things while tending to my first natural dye garden, including how…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

Making Natural Inks

12th October 2022

In June 2019, I released my first post about creating natural inks. Since then, I’ve explored, experimented, and optimized my ink-making formulas using various natural substances. I have learned much about this ancient means of communication. Ink is far more sophisticated than we realize! What is Ink? There are certainly as many definitions of ink as there are varieties. The most basic definition is that ink is a colored liquid or semi-liquid material used for writing, printing, or drawing. Chemists…

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Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks Painting & Sketching

Testing lightfastness of handmade artist grade paints

29th August 2022

The colors you use when creating a painting or drawing mustn’t fade over time. The last thing you need is your diligent work to gradually fade over time because the mediums you selected had poor lightfastness ratings. In this blog, I will share a simple test that you can do to get an idea of how your handmade colors will fare when exposed to sunlight. What is lightfastness? The lightfastness of paints or colorants is an attribute that determines how…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye Garden?!-VI

7th August 2022

Before departing on a three-week summer vacation, I visited my natural dye garden to tend to my plants, gather the blooms, and take care of the damage caused by the severe thundershowers two days before. When I arrived, the garden was in full bloom, and the pollinators were busily performing their jobs, but the thunderstorms had seriously damaged quite a few coreopsis plants. I began by collecting the bright and zingy orange cosmos flowers, then plucked the coreopsis blooms from…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye garden?!-Part V

25th June 2022

Gardening is a contemplative, humble activity that allows you to communicate with nature. It is a practice where you can’t force anything but patiently wait. I was delighted to see the flowers blooming after months of hard labour in my dye garden. It is gratifying to see your efforts bear fruit. In this blog post, I don’t have much to report but share the beauties of my dye garden. At the moment, the flowers are blooming both on my balcony…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my dye garden?!-Part-IV

15th June 2022

It’s been fascinating to see the progress of my natural dye garden.  The daily practice of tending my plants gives me immense satisfaction and joy. It’s the perfect antidote to the impersonal aspects of our computer-based lifestyles, which we’ve all experienced to some extent. In this blog article, I will share the most recent developments from my natural dye garden on the allotted plot and from my balcony. Natural Dye Garden Patch Two weeks ago, I visited my garden patch…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye garden?!-Part III

28th May 2022

You can create a wonderful natural dye garden on a balcony even if you don’t have a garden or access to a community garden space.  In this blog post, I’ll share the set-up and updates of my natural dye garden, which I started on the balcony of our new apartment earlier this year alongside an allocated garden space. The microclimate of a balcony garden differs from that of the ground. Consider the following factors before starting a balcony garden: space,…

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Handmade Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

How to Make Watercolor Binder

17th May 2022

A step-by-step guide to making gum Arabic based watercolor binder for handmade watercolors The use of Gum Arabic as a binder dates back to ancient times.  The presence of Gum Arabic increases watercolor brilliancy, gloss, and transparency, giving greater depth to each color. It slows down the drying time of paint, and can also be used for controlling spread when painting wet-on-wet. Watercolor paint is made by dispersing pigments of any colour in different proportions with acacia gum binder. The…

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Natural Dye Garden Natural pigments, watercolor paints, plant dyes & inks

What’s happening in my Dye Graden?!-Part II

12th May 2022

Two weeks ago, I went to tend my allocated garden plot to transplant saplings of dye plants into the Earth. The field was readied for gardening five weeks ago, but what awaited me was a jungle of weeds instead of a prepped garden plot. The rainy weather a week prior helped the seeds hidden in the soil, patiently waiting for the ideal conditions to sprout. All of the efforts to prepare the garden bed had been for nought. Lesson learned…

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