Styrian Summer Art: Eco Print & colours from natural materials

Pöllau bei Hartberg

About the offer

This workshop engages intensively and creatively with the colors and shapes of nature! We will primarily incorporate plants, but also soil, fungi, and stones from the immediate surroundings directly into our artworks. We will create colors from various natural materials and use them to write, print, draw, paint, and dye.

We will extensively explore Eco Print. Eco Printing, also known as Botanical Contact Print, is a printing technique where selected plant parts, appropriately mordanted, are cooked or steamed in a pressed state, allowing the plant to transfer its color and structure onto paper or fabric. This results in beautiful plant collages.

Finally, the artist will also address dyeing paper and fabrics with plants and other natural materials. We will set up an indigo vat with fructose and "dye naturally blue".

The art production and experimentation with plant-based colors, as well as working in/with nature, are the focus of this course! In good weather, we can work outside in nature. In any case, we will take walks to search the surroundings for plants and other natural materials. This can also happen in concreted areas.

The course will be conducted as sustainably as possible.

Please bring:

Absorbent paper, the thickness is variable, from watercolor paper to scrap paper - as much as one wants to produce.
Small textile items like fabric bags, etc.
Possibly plant material or other natural materials like stones or soils, from which one wants to extract color or create an Eco Print.
Dye plants in fresh or dried condition that one definitely wants to try.
Vinegar, soy milk for fixing
Alum
Potash to intensify the color
Gum Arabic, guar gum, or cornstarch to bind the colors
Iron oxide or rusty small parts like old nails, scissors, bottle openers...
Apron or other protective clothing - we are working with natural materials, so you may get dirty.
A suitable bag for transporting the artworks home.

https://www.styriansummerart.at/de/kunstworkshops/2025/eco-print-amp-farben-aus-naturmaterialien-mit-doris-reinbacher

Doris Reinbacher was born in 1981 in Graz and grew up near Stainz. 
She attended the Ortweinschule Graz for art and design, majoring in graphic design. 
Afterward, due to her second passion for literature, film, and theater: she studied German philology and theater, film, and media studies in Vienna. 
During an Erasmus stay in Scandinavia, she rediscovered the beauty of nature, leading to an ongoing interaction between city and countryside.
2009-2014: Member of the Subterrarium in Vienna: an association to promote and network experimental art forms. Organization and participation in various projects.
Since 2017: Intensive engagement with the printing technique Eco Print and the extraction of color from natural materials; since then a course instructor and exhibitor.
From 2019 until the onset of the pandemic: stayed in Chile and Argentina to connect with Holocaust survivors.

www.instagram.com/eco_print_doris_reinbacher
https://www.facebook.com/ecoprintdorisreinbacher

Here are impressions from the Atelierklasse 2024.

Meeting point

Pöllauer Tal Nature Park
Meeting point at 9:00 AM in front of the Pöllau tourist office

Price information

380 € excl. materials

Material contribution:
Materials such as dye plants, paper, textiles, gum arabic, guar gum, vinegar, potash, alum, soy milk can also be purchased from the artist. 
Amount depending on need approximately 20 to 40 Euros

About the serviceprovider

The Styrian Summer Art association has been organizing art courses in the Pöllau Valley Nature Park and art events in the region since 2007. In cooperation with experienced artists from the region, Austria and neighboring countries, the events offer guests and locals the opportunity to acquire and expand their own artistic skills and to experience contemporary art from various artistic disciplines. Styrian Summer Art once again offers a great program, where you can learn or refine many new things in art workshops.

Discover the Styrian Summer Art farben.formen.festival and live out your creativity and artistic passion - from 20.6. to 21.7.2024 in the Pöllauer Tal Nature Park in Eastern Styria and with an autumn special in October.

Date and time

  • 18 July - 20 July 2025
  • Friday - Starting at 09:00 o'clock

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Address of the organizer

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