Workshop: Screenprinting with Natural Inks

In this special workshop, Painting Plants and AGALAB team up to explore screen printing with natural inks.

Painting Plants is an open-source research garden and studio for developing natural dyes, pigments, and inks. Working with plants available in the season — such as madder, reseda, woad, and gallnut — we’ll make inks ranging from red and yellow to green and dark brown. We’ll also consider the material qualities of plant-based inks: they are light-sensitive and can change over time.

Across this extensive workshop, you’ll learn how to make screen-printing ink from plants and use it to print your own image onto different surfaces. We’ll work with your own image, text, or drawing while exploring the fundamentals of silkscreen printing: exposing a screen using UV light, mixing and layering natural inks, and printing by hand onto paper and textiles.

Silkscreen is a versatile stencil-based printing technique that allows for bold graphic results, layered colours, and editions. Widely used in art, publishing, textiles, and poster-making, it works equally well with photographic and hand-drawn imagery.

You’ll leave with an understanding of the screen-printing process, experience making and using plant-based inks, and your own printed experiments.

Date: Sat. 19 September & 21 November, 10:00–17:00
Max. number of participants: 6
Level: Beginners & Intermediate
Instructor: Bettie & Aster

Workshop fee: €200
The workshop fee covers most of the printing materials for the session.

What’s included:
Introduction to silkscreen printing 
A4-sized transparency  
Ink & natural binders 
Screens, coating and tools
Paper and Textiles

Important: If you want to work with a image of your own, you must bring a printed positive print of your image (photo, drawing, pattern) on a transparency (more information when you sign up).

If you require assistance with the transparency, you can visit AGALAB by appointment and our workshop manager will help you with exporting the file. Printing the transparency here at AGALAB is €5.

You go home with:
Multiple of A4 prints that you have printed
Manual of tips for silkscreen and natural inks