Indigo Prints
With Elisabeth Viguie Culshaw
A 4 session workshop on creating marks and pattern making on cellulose material using Indigo dye and a resist of soya/lime.
4-6pm BST/GMT Tuesdays 8th and 15th September, 20th and 17th October 2026.
Join live, or watch the recordings in your own time.
It takes roots in the heritage “Lan Yin Hua Bu” traditional method practiced in China for to make blue and white cloth, during the Han dynasty. It is perfect for the artist who wants to work on small and larger projects creating strong prints on fabric. In the same way as the the Eastern European “Blue prints” method it uses ferrous Indigo vats and guarantees strong contrasts.
In the 4 weeks we will:
Learn to set up a Ferrous/Mineral Natural Indigo vat and maintain it. There will a chance to create a graded scale of blues.
Learn about the traditional Soya/Lime Chinese method for blue and white prints.
Learn to make and use the Soya/Lime paste
Explore a number of applications from free hand painting to stenciling.
Explore multi blue simple pattern making.
Learn to prepare, clean and neutralise our material.
This technique is perfect for beginners in both printing with Indigo and Ferrous vat building or more advanced participants who want to consolidate their knowledge. You will need a small “messy” space to store and use an Indigo vat of at least 25 Litres (ideally 50 Litres is better). This workshop is only suitable for cellulose material (silk/wood are not suitable fabrics). Only small samples will be taught but some general advice about upscaling will be available.
PDF Handouts will be provided.
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Class Resources
Zoom links, recordings, and PDFs will be available here. You will receive an email when this page is updated.
Zoom links, recordings, and PDFs will be available here. You will receive an email when this page is updated.
Elisabeth Viguie Culshaw
Elisabeth Viguie Culshaw (aka Betty) is a color maker and educator, working only from Nature. Originally trained in Decorative Arts by Christie’s the auction house, she spend her working life in heritage stencilled schemes conservation.
In 2015 she branched out to the Eco world and is currently essentially working from plants and earth pigments in both Botanical printing and Indigo dyeing.
Born in France she lives and works in Scotland where she runs a sustainable studio in Glasgow. She frequently travels to teach and learn to France and South East Asia.
She is the author of “Botanical printing on paper” (Crowood press 2026), The online Botanical printing method “The True Colour of the Cotinus”, and grows “The Indigo Plot” an Indigo garden in the grounds of the Glasgow Botanical garden. She runs Eco colours retreats in France and Thailand.
In 2026 she will host “Shades of Blue” a solo exhibition about Indigo in Scotland.
