What is a nature print? Our recent workshop instructor and U. Penn professor Miranda Mote explains:

Roderick Cave and his work documenting nature printing as an ancient, global practice describes a nature printing as: “the technique of taking prints either directly or later indirectly from natural objects without the interposition of an artist.” … The use of the nature print corresponds with the establishment of early modern botanical gardens and with the increased availability of paper in Europe in the 15th-century. Nature prints were useful in that they are cheap, accurate, and could be made in the field. Collections of nature prints were considered useful supplements to herbaria collections.

This beautiful, hands-on workshop was presented in support of profs. Rebecca Popowsky and Todd Montgomery’s ENVS-011 course Seeds to Systems, literally bringing the interior of the Makerspace out into surrounding nature, and vice versa. The course is an engaging range of subjects and approaches to landscape and nature — from measured design of the built landscape environment, to conceptual thinking about landscape and ecology, to tangible craft around real plants. And late April gave us an absolutely perfect day to turn the space outside the Makerspace into an arboreal print shop.

Check out some of the prints and scenes from the afternoon below!