Local colour palettes operate according to uniquely local timelines.

Throughout the seasons, the collection and development of our local colour palette continues. Highlights from this year included foraging St. John's Wort, Arbutus (with the help of Kyra and friends) and Queen Anne's Lace with Rod, working with Emily Thiessen on developing her own pigment skills during a work session in May, and collecting plant material and preparing pigments from the studio's garden including coreopsis, marigold, hopi black dye sunflower, woad, and blackberry.

Experiments with filtering and grinding has started to yield results in getting finer particles for our pigments, which should allow us to be able to use a finer mesh screens, thus achieving more detailed prints. We are getting results with a high powered grinder and an old flour mill, although both could use improvement in controlling dust and collecting all of the pigment. We also learned about levigation and filtering from a local clay miner who works with larger quantities of mineral pigments.

There have been several print sessions on fabric and paper as we work to achieve better, more effective formulas for our prints.