Curious about fungi? Have a love affair with color? Combine your interests and explore the realm of color created from mushrooms in this workshop with Botanical Colors. They have long been used as a source of natural color, yielding some of nature's most vibrant colors. In this workshop artist, farmer and creator of the Mushroom Color Atlas Julie Beeler will teach students how to identify and unlock the hidden colors within easy to identify wild mushrooms and transform them into dyes, pigments, paints and inks.
We will kick off the weekend on Friday with a farm to foraged dinner at the fabulous Cave Creek Farm with famed chef Karl Holl for a 3-course mushroom themed meal including wine, beer and kombucha. Saturday will be spent in the forest, learning about and foraging for dye mushrooms. Julie will walk students through the mushroom identification process and teach you how to locate dye mushrooms using environmental indicators. You will leave with an understanding of how to find, forage for and identify dye mushrooms.
On Sunday we will spend the day in the studio. Julie will cover general mushroom dye techniques as students explore the myriad of shades these forest friends offer us. She will teach you how to transform the mushroom dyes and explore the process of lake making to create mushroom pigments that can be used in a variety of forms. You will learn different extraction methods for making inks and mull your own watercolor paint. Everyone will create a mini accordion book to record and capture the color. You will assemble wool and silk fiber samples for the mushroom color chart you will create. Everyone will take home some sample mushroom paint and an instructional craftbook including mushroom dye recipes. Throughout class we will have opportunities for questions and discussions on everything we cover in the class, including best practices for foraging, reviewing a list of available resources and more.
No previous experience necessary, though a fantastic workshop for practicing dyers. Students must be comfortable and physically able to spend 5 hours hiking through the forest, off-trail. Saturday’s session will be held rain or shine. Limited to 15 participants.