Botanical Ink Making: Colors that Tell a Story of Place, with Eames Ranch Studios Artist Resident Lena Wolff

As part of Petaluma Arts Center's exhibition "Crafting Curiosity: Advancing a Legacy of Agriculture and Making at the Eames Ranch," Bay Area artist and craftswoman Lena Wolf leads a workshop exploring natural ink and paint making.

Uniquely different from working with stable store-bought art materials, making handmade color is dynamic and surprising, offering an environmentally sound approach to artmaking while also forming a deeper connection to place. During the class, Lena will share about her experience generating colors with plants and fungi during her residency at the Eames Ranch and relay the fundamentals of the process: from foraging and gathering, to extracting color into paint. Participants will create several color charts as well as learn how to adjust hues with a variety of additives, documenting the process along the way and taking recipes home for future experimentation.

As a longtime teacher of color theory, Lena will weave broader context into the workshop, sharing a brief history of paint-making and the phenomenon behind our perception of colors in interaction, looking at the subject through multiple lenses of art, craft, science, design and environmentalism.

All materials will be supplied and are included in the workshop fee.

THIS WORKSHOP IS SOLD OUT

Please note that photography and video recording may take place during this event. By participating, you grant the Eames Institute permission to use your image for storytelling, marketing, and/or documentation purposes. By registering for this event, you also agree to receive occasional email communications from the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. You may unsubscribe at any time. Please reach out to events@eamesinstitute.org with any questions.

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The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity dedicated to advancing the legacy of 20th-century designers Ray and Charles Eames. Over the course of their decades-long partnership, the husband and wife duo approached design as a tool for problem-solving and discovery—driven by curiosity, refined through iteration, and always guided by purpose. Their work was wide-ranging, spanning furniture, architecture, film, exhibition design and more, with every project grounded in rigor, joy, and a meticulous commitment to make things better.