Ink and Pigment Making Workshop with Colour Lab

Colour Lab: Ink and Pigment Making workshop

Learn how to make watercolour inks from plants, minerals and waste stream products

Colourmaking is a beautiful way to connect with your local land, to see plants and minerals transform into art materials and allow this to inspire and influence your image making.

Come and join the Colour Lab at Make Southwest, where we'll spend the morning making ink from dye plants and food waste, with easy-to-repeat recipes and instructions on how to modify and preserve your colours. In the afternoon we'll work with locally foraged minerals to make watercolour paints, giving you an opportunity to see how different materials present on the page.

You'll go home with a pot of your own ink, a series of colour samples, a recipe booklet and any drawings you've made.

Testimonials from previous workshop participants: 

‘I really enjoyed the process and the energy alchemy. It was great to start kind of brainy and end with sweeping brush, intuitive pipette and mysterious mixing.’

‘Fascinating workshop which made natural dye-making very accessible. Lovely to have so much hands-on experimentation!’

‘Well paced and a wealth of information. Great range of materials to work with, I’ll definitely be exploring ink making more.’

On the day:

All equipment and materials will be provided.

Please do wear comfortable / old clothes. Aprons will be provided, if needed.

Tea, coffee and biscuits are included and will be available on the day. Our Café is also open should you wish to purchase other refreshments during the workshop.

Tea, coffee and biscuits are included and will be available on the day. There will be a short lunch break during the workshop and participants are welcome to bring a packed lunch, to be eaten in the workshop space, our ground floor courtyard, or offsite. Our Café is also open should you wish to purchase other refreshments during the workshop.

Workshop participants get 10% off in Rodney’s Café, our exhibitions, and our shop on the day of the workshop! Just show your booking confirmation email or your ticket at the till to receive your discount.

On arrival, please enter the building via the shop, follow the arrows to ‘Education Space’, through the smaller galleries, at the rear of the building on the ground floor.

Please let us know if you require the lift or any reasonable adjustments to be made for accessibility in advance of the workshop date.

Please be aware that you cannot use the Co-op car park for all day parking. The Methodist Church car park and Station Road car park usually have plenty of spaces. Click here for more information on our location and car parking for the day.

View MAKE Southwest's Cancellation Policy, here.