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.

WORKSHOP FEE: $150 ($125 for Petaluma Arts Center and Eames Institute members)