Curious about mushrooms for colour? In this online virtual demonstration I will teach you how to extract and unlock the universe of colours lurking inside fungi. Working with natural colorants is a time-honoured, hands-on, rich experience. Learning to extract these natural colours—which requires making countless decisions with our eyes, hands, and aesthetic intuitions—gives us an intimate connection to the hues and their fungi sources.
I will cover general techniques for coaxing pigment from mushrooms and walk through the process of making a lake using different types of mushrooms. We will talk about basic mushroom identification skills for a variety of dye mushrooms, discussing habitat, ethical foraging and safety. I will demonstrate how to make watercolor paint using the lake pigment and you will see mushroom pigments can be used in a variety of forms ranging from oil paints, inks, crayons, pastels and printing making ink–perfect for any artist.