I will be teaching this course with Plants and Colours as part of my “Shades of Blue festival”

A four-part workshop on creating marks and pattern making on cellulose material using Indigo dye and a resist of soya/lime.

Tuesdays 8th and 15th September, 20th and 27th October 2026 4-6pm BST/GMT

Join live, or watch the recordings in your own time.

With it’s roots in the heritage “Lan Yin Hua Bu” traditional method practiced in China for making blue and white cloth, during the Han dynasty; this technique is perfect for the artist who wants to work on small and larger projects creating strong prints on fabric. In the same way as the Eastern European “Blue prints” method it uses ferrous Indigo vats and guarantees strong contrasts.

In the four weeks we will:

• Learn to set up a Ferrous/Mineral Natural Indigo vat and maintain it. There will a chance to create a graded scale of blues.
• Learn about the traditional Soya/Lime Chinese method for blue and white prints.
• Learn to make and use the Soya/Lime paste
• Explore a number of applications from free hand painting to stencilling.
• Explore multi blue simple pattern making.
• Learn to prepare, clean and neutralise our material.

This technique is perfect for beginners in both printing with Indigo and Ferrous vat building or more advanced participants who want to consolidate their knowledge. You will need a small “messy” space to store and use an Indigo vat of at least 25 Litres (ideally 50 Litres is better). This workshop is only suitable for cellulose material (silk/wood are not suitable fabrics). Only small samples will be taught but some general advice about upscaling will be available.

PDF Handouts will be provided.

To book a space find your way to Plants and Colours website HERE