"From Plant to Pigment"
From Plant to Pigment: How to make your own vibrant inks, pastels and paints is a studio manual by RISD faculty member and alum Natalie Stopka 07 IL forthcoming from Skittledog Books in October, 2025.
For those of us artists seeking sustainability and ecological connection, the very refined and chemically pure colors stocked by today's vendors are very far removed from nature. Inspired by the history and craft of color-making, Natalie Stopka is an artist and educator known for her explorations of handmade pigments. In From Plant to Pigment she invites us into her studio, sharing the ways she has divested her practice of non-renewable synthetics in favor of the craft of homegrown color. Natalie's recipes transform natural dyes into vibrant and stable lake pigments. Explicating the fundamental techniques and chemistry of lakes, this book extends the applications of natural dye colors into expanded artistic media and empowers artists to make their own botanical pigments, paints, and pastels.
