I was an external documenter for a preschool early childhood literacy project in Chicago at NEIU years ago. Even Start invited preschool children and their parents to after-school sessions. Parents read to their children in the library before the program began. Several centers were set up with materials for small projects. Parents and children selected a center and joined a project work area. I shadowed with my video camera as parents and children worked together to create knowledge artifacts. I learned the power of materials to invite people into a creative process.

For this workshop, I offered many choices through art materials. Before we began the workshop, I gave a tour of what would be available after we returned from our correspondence with nature.

I made the ink during my residency at Spaces for Possibility – Black Walnut and Egyptian Walking Onion. There are different nimbs on the stick pens. There is an Exacto knife for scraping and an eye dropper.

Oil pastels create color and resist when drawing with ink.

Tools for rubbing, resist wax crayons, beeswax. Anything with a surface pattern will transfer by rubbing. Wax allows layering with colors.

Drafting templates and tools such as a protractor and drawing compass are useful for composition and drawing layers of abstract geometry.

I tore rectangles from large handmade mulberry paper. I soaked the papers with different mordants. This one is Copper Carbonate.

Small boxes and bandage plaster. Scissors to cut the plaster before wetting it in a bowl of water. There are examples I prepared during my residency.

Eco-dying samples. Start with paper, soak it with thin color washes using brushes. Add plants and other foraged materials, roll tightly, and wrap with string. Wait to unwrap until dry or let it age for weeks, months, or ears. Notes describe the process and the ingredients.

Embroidery and linen thread. Scissors, awl, frame, thimble, needles.

Hand printing from leaves using block printing ink and printmaking paper.

Tools include a brush to place the ink on the backing board, brayers to roll ink, and a Baren to transfer the image to paper.

Small gage colored and silver wire and players to shape, coil, bend, atwist it into shapes.

Other materials available were graphite pencils, colored pencils, colored pencils that become watercolor, watercolor tubes in various colors, and a collection of brushes in various sizes and shapes.