Hoping for a breeze and a cloudy sky, the crowd began arriving prior to 5:30pm for MBG’s first class to be offered in the afternoon on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. “Painting with Plants” was scheduled in the afternoon with Urban Farmer, Caylor Roling, of EAT South as instructor, to determine if this time slot would be popular with attendees. It definitely is! The attendance was outstanding. So we will be planning for more afternoon classes later.
Maggie introducing Caylor and Tara
In early Spring MBG made a garden space available for Caylor and her team to plant a “Dye Garden” filled with plants that were used for the class, such as Indigo and Coreopsis. Caylor and her assistant, Tara, provided an abbreviated description of various procedures and methods to prepare different plant materials to use for dye, ink and paint. Each usable plant requires different procedures to extract the color, develop the desired color in the dye and storage. There are also a variety of preparations that are necessary for the cloth or paper or any other substance to be dyed or painted for the color to attach or absorb in the medium. Caylor and Tara also shared a list of terms that are specific to plant dyes and paints.
Tara demonstrating the pounding transfer method
Tara demonstrated one method of transferring color from plants to paper by pounding the material with the blossom or leaf inside to achieve a transfer of color onto the paper. It was active, fun and produced lovely, colorful imprints. It became clear that to be successful it will take practice and good techniques. There was also a demonstration of using the plant dyes and an artist’s paint brush to paint on a prepared medium, paper soaked in Soy Milk. Some of the attendees tried the pounding and the painting with plant dyes and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
An attendee showing her transfer results
Caylor explained that there is a great deal of information available for those who are really interested in learning about painting with plant dyes or using plant dyes to color cloth or make ink. A list of some of those resources is provided with this article at the link below.
Tara demonstrating painting with plant dyes
