Presentations and Reference Materials

• Presentation: Introduction to Pigments & Paints - an introduction to the concepts and methods of making pigments and paints, the classification of different types of colorants (organic, mineral, and earth), and historical recipe examples (2022-06-14)
• Presentation: Cochineal Lake: History, Chemistry, and Preparation - an overview of historical natural colorants and dyes, details about common red colorants, a deep-dive into the history of cochineal insects as a dye and pigment source, the preparation of “lake” pigments, and explanation of the chemistry of these natural colorants (2022-06-14)
• Dye sample book - dye experiments with natural colorants, conducted in the M&K lab since 2016. Colorants include cochineal, madder, logwood, weld, turmeric, gall nuts, buckthorn berries (2022-11-25)

Presentations on Natural Dyes

Different variations of presentations given by the Making and Knowing Project on dyeing with natural colorants with a particular focus on red. While most of these presentations pay particular attention to cochineal, the chemistry and preparation of dyes is more widely applicable to most natural colorants used in the early modern period. The following presentations contain some of the same slides, but each has additional information or a different focus based on the context in which it was given. Given the close connection dyes have to lake pigments, see also the presentation above on Cochineal Lake.

• Presentation: Cochineal Dye: History, Chemistry, and Preparation - longer (2018) - an overview of historical natural colorants and dyes, details about common red colorants, a deep-dive into the history of cochineal insects as a dye and pigment source, the preparation of mordant dyes, historical recipe examples, and explanation of the chemistry of these natural colorants. Prepared originally as part of a workshop, “Coloring Textiles with Bugs: Old (Cochineal) and New (Bacteria),” co-developed with Sumeyye Yar for Genspace Community Labs (2022-06-17)
• Presentation: Cochineal Dye: History, Chemistry, and Preparation - shorter (2019) - an overview of historical natural colorants and dyes, a deep-dive into the history of cochineal insects as a dye and pigment source, the preparation of mordant dyes, historical recipe examples and explanation of the chemistry of these natural colorants (2022-06-17)
• Presentation: Reconstruction Exchange: Case Study in 16th Century Red Dyes - created as part of a reconstruction exchange workshop with Refashioning the Renaissance in March 2019 on dyes. The Making and Knowing Project and Refashioning the Renaissance experimented with materials commonly used in the early modern period for dyeing red, including the widespread madder, the expensive kermes, and the potent cochineal. This presentation provides an overview of natural dyes as well as discusses the materials, chemistry, recipes, and processes for dyeing in early modern Europe.
  • See also Refashioning the Renaissance’s Red Dyes Experiment Page and Worksop Blog Post (2022-06-17)
• Presentation: Dyeing: Step-by-Step Instructions with information about sourcing materials (2022-06-17)