From Plant to Pigment: How to make your own vibrant inks, pastels and paints
a studio manual by Natalie Stopka
from Skittledog Books
The many plants that surround and sustain us are rich with color. With a little alchemical know-how, you can transform the brilliant hues of our botanical companions from liquid dye to granular pigment, supplying myriad artistic uses as paint, ink and pastel.
Today’s art suppliers are stocked with very refined and chemically pure colors. But for those of us seeking sustainability and ecological connection, they are very far removed from nature. Inspired by the history and craft of color-making, Natalie Stopka is an artist and educator known for her explorations of handmade pigments. In From Plant to Pigment she invites us into her studio, sharing the ways she has divested her practice of non-renewable synthetics in favor of the craft of homegrown color.
Natalie's recipes transform natural dyes into vibrant and stable lake pigments. Explicating the fundamental techniques and chemistry of lakes, this book extends the applications of natural dye colors into expanded artistic media. Artists are empowered to concoct their own pigments, paints, and pastels from botanicals, with sections including:
Botanical sources: cultivating, foraging, harvesting and storing dye plants
The studio larder: essential equipment and ingredients
Lake pigments: including Natalie’s master lake pigment recipe
Other plant pigments: charcoal and indigo
Artists’ materials: using your botanical pigments to make an array of artists’ materials
AUTHOR TALK
AUTHOR TALK
Book Signing & Demo
Dennis Conservation Land Trust
107 Sesuit Neck Rd
East Dennis, MA
Free! May 13, 2:00 - 4:00pm
Natalie will kick off her talk with a demo making invasive buckthorn into a usable pigment. In addition to the demo and talk, Natalie will introduce us to her traveling archive of over 200 hand-crafted plant pigments from sources you won’t believe! Each hue tells a story of transformation: from wild-foraged plants to radiant inks, paints, and pastels, and reveals the delicate balance between natural materials and the environments they come from.
This event places a special focus on water quality and ecological stewardship.
Learn how something as seemingly simple as water is essential not only for vibrant, lasting pigments, but for the health of the ecosystems that produce them. You’ll also discover how plants themselves play a powerful role in conservation. From filtering and protecting waterways to serving as renewable sources of color, botanical materials offer a path toward more sustainable creative practices. Through stories of traditional pigment-making and modern experimentation, Natalie connects the dots between art, environmental awareness, and responsible sourcing.
