Autumn leaves lifted from the rain-spattered sidewalk often leave a print behind. When collecting produce from the garden,  one often encounters a range of colours held within flowers, leaves, roots, and stalks. The chromatic potential of what lies just beyond our front door provides a jumping-off point to consider options for contact printing, pressing, steaming, and immersion dyeing.

In this three-day exploratory workshop, students will learn techniques that can be used to investigate the colourful world hidden in the plants around them. Techniques such as direct printing, hammering, and steaming will be combined with the fundamentals of natural dye chemistry so that students gain an understanding of how colour is held in plant matter and under what conditions it may be transferred to fabric. Students will learn about mordants and tannins and substantive dyes (dyes which do not require a mordant). The workshop will conclude with indigo overdyeing and some special tricks that can be used to add focus to contact prints.

The emphasis will be on guiding student intuition and providing a range of methods that can be used to investigate any environment for colouring matter.

Natalie Grambow has an extensive background in design, teaching, and textile arts. An accredited Interior Designer, she spent many years in Ottawa working within the architectural design field and teaching Design Theory. Natalie’s first deep exploration of textiles began during her Visual Arts/Photography studies at the University of Ottawa when she experimented with non-silver techniques of transferring photographic imagery onto cloth. She subsequently studied at the École d’Impression Textile à Montréal and later travelled to Asia and Latin America where she spent six months learning to weave with local Mayan weavers in Guatemala. Shortly after completing the Textile Arts program at Capilano College in 2001, she was awarded the BC Craft Association’s Award of Excellence. 

Natalie has exhibited her textile art installations in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, and the Sunshine Coast. She  has also developed a line of naturally dyed and printed fabrics and has been commissioned by such clients as the city of North Vancouver. Currently living in Roberts Creek, BC, she continues her art practice and studies from her studio.