Green Libraries Week 2025
From Seed to Paint
This project explored nature and sustainability through art, delivered as a series of hands-on workshops in the community garden at Darfield Library. Participants learned how to make natural inks, create watercolour paints, and experiment with flower printing. Together, we also grew plants, created nature journals, and spent time enjoying and responding to the garden space, deepening our connection to the environment.
The workshops were commissioned as part of a micro-commission with Barnsley Libraries, within their National Portfolio Organisation programme funded by Arts Council England, and formed part of Green Libraries Week.
Weekly gatherings to explore workshops using the new community garden space
Nature journals
Plants grown in containers to use for pigment: including calendula and indigo.
Watercolour workshop outside in the garden.
Grinding the pigments using a homemade pestle and mortar
Combining pigments with locally sourced gum to bind everything together
Extracting colour from plant material
We had great fun making botanical prints, testing the colours and properties of plants
Pressing leaves
Saving studies in sketchbooks
Botanical prints on textile
Combining everyones contributions into a piece of wall art
Pop up exhibition for Green Libraries week, we hosted an event day of workshops and skill sharing and encouraged people to make a nature pledge
We shared our colour making processes with the community