Natural dye color, watercolor and more!

This past weekend, we explored using both natural dye color and watercolor in a class at the From the hART Wellness Studio on Bloomfield. It was so much fun! We tried different colors, did a little tangling, and enjoyed a lot of great conversation and laughter!

This will be one of two posts highlighting what we did. There were three projects total, and one of them took a completely different approach than the other two.

For the one highlighted here...

I created a natural dye by extracting color from dried hawthorn berries using rubbing alcohol. I let the extraction sit for a few weeks at room temperature and then filtered out the berries. I've also done this extraction in the past with vodka—that works well, too!

We started with a pre-drawn mini-mandala string on a 3.5 x 3.5 Zentangle tile (100% cotton paper) and drew structured patterns (aka tangles) using Sakura Pigma 05 and 01 pens (archival and they don't bleed).

From there, some of us chose to use an eyedropper to apply the extracted hawthorn alcohol ink on top and then let the tiles dry.

The natural hawthorn dye gave the mini-mandala tiles a lovely vintage or antique look! So cool!

I'm thinking about how I can make this into a DIY kit for those of you who aren't local (or even if you are local but missed the class). If that's of interest to you, send me a message, and I'll put you on the "interested" list!

If you missed photos from some of our other recent classes, you can check them out here...

"Relaxing Afternoon of Tangling, Connection and Creativity"

"Tangle & Splash - Where Watercolor Meets Zentangle"

Happy Tangling!

Kris