Botanical Watercolor Painting Palettes for Youth (Ages 14+) – 3-Hour Using a hands-on approach, students developed their own botanical painting palettes using fruits, onion skins, and mica minerals. Designed for youth ages 14 and up, the session emphasizes working with non-toxic, accessible materials—encouraging participants to explore pigment sources found in their own kitchens and backyards.The workshop begins with an introduction to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), followed by a discussion on ethical foraging practices for materials such as blueberries, raspberries, and onion skins. Students learn how to safely and responsibly collect and prepare these natural resources and process them into painting palettes.

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A key focus of the session is documentation. Participants are taught the importance of detailed note-taking to ensure color consistency and reproducibility. This includes recording precise measurements using a scale, simmering times, ratios of anti-fungal agents, and the total time required to produce each dye. Through hands-on experimentation, students discover that onions (Allium cepa) vary in type and that their skins—often discarded—contain valuable phytochemicals such as quercetin and pelargonidin. These compounds produce a range of colors, which can shift depending on the use of mordants. Onion skins are also rich in tannins and are considered a “direct” (substantive) natural dye, meaning they can be used effectively without a mordant. The workshop also introduces gum arabic, including the origin of its name and its role as a binder in watercolor paint. Students use a glass mueller to grind and refine their pigments, gaining a deeper understanding of the traditional techniques used to create sustainable, handmade painting palettes once used by artists such as  Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci.