From Plant to Pigment: How to make your own vibrant inks, pastels and paints

A manual full of recipes for artists to create their own pigments, paints, and pastels from botanical sources.

Natalie Stopka is an artist and educator known for her explorations of handmade, homegrown 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 favour of the craft of handmade, homegrown, local colour.

Learn the fundamental technique of how to make a lake pigment, transforming botanical dye into lasting, vivid pigment. This book will give you the tools to make the most vibrant natural colours that are perfect for your own artistic endeavours.

Sections include:

Botanical sources (cultivating, foraging, harvesting and storing dye plants).

The studio larder (essential equipment and ingredients).

Lake pigments (including Natalie's master lake pigment recipe).

Other plant pigments

Artists' materials (using your botanical pigments to make an array of artists' materials).

Hardback | 176 pages | Published October 2025