The Mushroom Color Atlas: A Guide to Dyes and Pigments Made from Fungi

by Julie Beeler, Yuli Gates (illustrator)

Discover the chromatic wonders of the fungi kingdom and the incredible spectrum of pigments and dyes that can be created from mushrooms.

More closely related to humans than they are to plants, fungi are fascinating organisms--and they are a rich resource for color collectors! Blending scientific detail, botanical illustrations, and creative inspiration, artist and educator Julie Beeler invites you to peek into her workroom as she introduces different types of dye mushrooms--from boletes to polypores to tooth fungi--and walks you through her color-harvesting process. Offering insightful tips on foraging and color distillation and a rainbow of color samples, Beeler peppers in down-to-earth advice on artistic experimentation and fascinating stories about the historical and personal connections between humans and nature, offering a fresh perspective on the magical world of mushrooms.

UNIQUE FIELD GUIDE TO MUSHROOMS: This guide will take you on a vibrant journey through identifying and collecting dye mushrooms to distilling an astonishing range of colors from each one. The five hundred color swatches included in these pages showcase an astounding array of natural dyes and pigments made from mushrooms.

A PRACTICAL AND INSPIRATIONAL GUIDE: The Mushroom Color Atlas combines step-by-step instructions for hands-on color creation with impressive hues and eye-catching palettes. Whether you're a working designer or an emerging artist, a full-time forager or an armchair mycologist, you will find something to love in this unique exploration of science and color.

GO NATURAL: The rewarding hands-on experience of working with mushroom dyes and pigments is a powerful way to feel intimately connected to nature. Beeler invites readers to forge their own creative connection to the natural world, offering advice on ethical foraging, artistic experimentation, and the abundant possibilities afforded to us by the small but mighty mushroom.

Perfect for:
Mushroom enthusiasts, foragers, amateur mycologists, and nature lovers
Artists; fashion, graphic, and interior designers; any professional who incorporates color into their work
Crafters and creative hobbyists
Color enthusiasts and people interested in natural dyes and pigments
Anyone interested in sustainable fashion and textile arts

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Crafts

288 pages, Hardcover

Published September 3, 2024

Reviews

[Matal “The Mischling Princess” Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julie Beeler’s “The Mushroom Color Atlas: A Guide to Dyes and Pigments Made from Fungi” is a beautifully illustrated book. Comprised of three sections—Colors, Mushrooms, and Process—Beeler reveals the wide spectrum of colors that can be found using wild foraged mushrooms.

The author clearly states that this book provides just a sampling of mushrooms that can be used. However, I wish that she had included detailed information, such as a map of the native ranges for these mushrooms, rather than a vague descriptions (e.g., “…West Coast of North America…” (p. 109).

The color squares of cloth are beautiful and show the variations of colors using different mordants on wool, silk, and linen, but why I think that she should have also included another popular fiber like cotton.

Overall, this book is well-written and researched. I particularly like how Beeler provides accurate, succinct answers. This is an excellent book on mushrooms as dyes and before I read it, I really hadn’t considered how valuable mushrooms were to dyeing.

[*ੈ✩‧₊˚Sassy Little Hippy˚₊‧✩ ੈ* · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️
A delightful artistic look at using nature for pigmentation.

🍄‍🟫 This book is presented in a way that inspires exploration the magical fungi kingdom and the art it can produce through pigmentation. It’s written by an artist and educator that is passionate about using mushrooms as dye.

🎨 It displays a beautiful spread of color palettes and the colorful impacts each mushroom can have on various types of mediums (wool, silk, linen). It also touches on a bit of history, foraging, sourcing, dyeing and watercolor paint. All geared towards those looking to DIY their own watercolor mushroom dye.

👩🏻‍🎨 As a lover of all things craft and nature, this really makes my inner hippie giggle with joy. While creating my own pigments isn’t yet in my long list of “crafts to try,” I still found the fact that you can use mushrooms as pigmentation extremely fascinating.

Thanks to NetGalley, Chronicle Books, and Julie Beeler for providing me with a complimentary ARC to review!

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeous guide for using mushrooms as dyes is different than any book I've ever read and totally fascinating! This is a stunning book for the eye and a wondrous resource for those who seek to use natural materials for colorants. Spectacular!

[Rita Spruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a go-to book on producing dyes from mushrooms. Julie Beeler shares helpful information on many mushroom species and foraging, as well as the chemicals needed to produce the dyes.

However, it is the beauty of the photos and illustrations that makes it sing. This well-organized manual is filled with colorful swatch displays that show the spectrum of hues extracted from mushrooms ranging from delicate to robust.

I enjoyed this book for the rich visuals and a window into the creative process of dyes made from mushrooms.

Thank you Chronicle Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The Mushroom Color Atlas is a beautifully colorfully illustrated atlas to fungi by Julie Beeler specifically aimed at artists and naturalists. Due out 3rd Sept 2024 from Chronicle Books, it's 288 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This is a comprehensive reference absolutely full of information specifically about foraging, preparing, and using fungi in the fibre coloring and pigment making process. There's a wealth of knowledge including color charts/swatches, species (including proper (at the time of publication) nomenclature), range, and dyeing tutorials.

There's a whole interesting subset of mycology specifically as it relates to and intersects with the artist community. There are festivals and symposia about pigment-bearing fungi, and a strong grass roots element of experiment minded artists continually tweaking and documenting available knowledge.

This book is full of up-to-date info about how to source and use fungi to make pigments and dyes. She goes into detail about mordants and processes for different fibres, as well as a fairly comprehensive pigment making tutorial aimed at watercolorists.

There isn't much photography in the book outside the actual how-to tutorials, but the book is lavishly illustrated in color throughout by Yuli Gates. Illustrations are very detailed and the different species are certainly recognizable.

The book is arranged in sections: colors (of dye), specific mushrooms (boletes, gilled, polypores, etc), and finally the dye/pigment tutorials.

Five stars. This would be an excellent choice for public library acquisition, for smallholders, fibrecrafters, fibre arts guilds, and similar groups.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Kelli Santistevan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Discover the chromatic wonders of the fungi kingdom and the incredible spectrum of pigments and dyes that can be created from mushrooms.

Thank you Chronicle Books & Netgalley for this digital ARC! I enjoyed this book. I like eating mushrooms that are sold at the grocery store and I’ve always wondered what role mushrooms play in our ecosystem and now, I know after reading this book. I didn’t know that there’s a lot of different types of mushrooms and different colors of mushrooms. I live in the suburbs and I’ve only ever seen 1 type of mushroom here in my neighborhood. I didn’t know that you can create pigments and dyes using mushrooms and it’s not something I’ve ever thought about. I don’t think I would be interested in foraging for mushrooms and making pigments and dyes from them. Would the fashion industry ever dye their clothes using mushrooms? It would probably be more environmentally friendly if that’s something they’re worried about but I don’t know if the fashion industry would ever get on board with this. Would I recommend this book? I would recommend it if you want to use mushrooms to create pigments and dyes or even if you just want to learn about mushrooms and the role they play in our ecosystem. If they didn’t exist, we would have a bunch of dead plants everywhere and that wouldn’t be pretty at all.

[Jax · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an informative, well-organized book about the beautiful dyes that can be extracted from mushrooms. Julie Beeler organizes her book by first describing the colors held in various fungi, including the range of hues based on fruiting body age, mordants, and ph used when extracting the pigments. The next section describes mushroom families such a boletes, gilled, polypores, and tooth, for example. The images include the taxonomic names and areas where the various mushrooms can be found. The final section offers instructions on how to extract the pigments and dye fibers with them.

Julie shares her experience foraging for mushrooms with antidotes that lend a humorous and lighthearted side to her narrative. She offers practical suggestions such as gaining permission and permits, if applicable, and tips on gathering without damaging the mycelium structure. She also reminds us that insects and wildlife depend on fungi for food, suggesting we keep that in mind when choosing how much to gather.

Along with the color swatches, Julie includes a detailed color wheel that is an artist’s dream palette and can serve as inspiration for artists working in a variety of mediums.

Highly recommended!Thank you to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

[Book Nibbler · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface this is a beautiful coffee table type book. The book is broken down into 3 main sections, Colors, Mushrooms, and Process.

I felt the color section was really lacking. I would have loved to see more color swatches and less basic knowledge of the history of the color. I paint with oils so I was really expecting something like the 1500 Color Mixing Recipes for oils book that I have.
This section did have very crude illustrations of the specific mushrooms that were used to create the specific swatch. As a mushroom novice it would have been more helpful to have actual photos of the mushrooms linked to the color swatches for identification purposes.

Found the second section a little more useful because it gave good descriptions of the mushrooms but again there were no photos to reference. The best part of this section is that the writer did include color swatches that could be obtained from the specific mushroom that was referenced in the chapter.

The last section would have been more useful if there were step by step instructions on using a specific mushroom to create the dye and taking it through the whole process. The chapter initially seemed that way, but it was too surface level for a complete novice like myself.

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great resource. I’ve been researching this topic for a while for a children’s nature book and project that I have a grant for, so I’ve been reading books on the topic (there aren’t many) and following Facebook groups on the subject. It’s such a fascinating way to create dye and paint, and the colors are gorgeous and so varied once you start adding mordants like tin, iron and soda ash. I would have preferred to have photos of the mushrooms for identification purposes (there are crude drawings and detailed descriptions) and more photos of the steps, plus more detailed instructions for the actual dye and paint making. The bulk of the book is the color swatches for each of the featured mushrooms. There are hundreds of pages of these and it will be an invaluable resource for anyone who uses mushrooms for dyeing.

I read a temporary, self destroying digital ARC of this book for review.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Mushroom Color Atlas is a wonderful book for nature lover and artists alike. From the first few pages, I could tell that I wanted to have this book in my home collection! I may not be an artist by any means but I found it fascinating how so many different colors can be created by certain fungi. The colors were stunning throughout. I really appreciate that the author added some ecological information about the different fungi as well. The only thing that I felt odd was the placement of the Pigments section that detailed preparation. I would have understood the second section a lot more if that information on had been first.

[Cyrambo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is awesome, especially if you are interested in natural dyes or paints. The color examples alone are worth getting the book as it showcases the entire rainbow derived from simple shrooms. In addition to the color palette, the book describes the dye making process in a way that is easy to understand and feels approachable by folks of any skill level. I do find myself wishing there had been photo references to help identify the mushrooms used, instead of just a few drawings, but I suppose there are other books for that. Either way, I loved the book. 10/10 would read again!

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC!

[Jessica Hembree · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the idea of creating natural dyes for my crafting. I’ve never really considered mushrooms as a dye source before reading this book. I love the illustrations of the various mushrooms (seriously love them!) and enjoyed seeing them throughout the book. The book is great about explaining the actual science of the mushrooms and how to get the dyes to work. The process of creating the dyes is explained very well. Very interesting book and great reference for those interested in creating dyes from mushrooms.

[Candice Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently have been exploring the outdoors and have been taking pictures of different mushrooms that I see. So, I was interested in learning, and was given an opportunity to read an advance copy of The mushroom atlas! I learned Mushrooms are more like people than plants. Mushrooms have had more of a roll in textile manufacturing than I ever thought. The book also goes over the history of dye, and the different kinds. Its not the average science book, it keeps your attention throughout the book with a creative twist.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing resource that's beautifully laid out with hundreds of swatches and technical information. Worth having on your shelves to reference when needed.

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, well researched book.

[Marmot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such gorgeous colour plates! It is very inspiring and made me want to start foraging for mushrooms to dye yarn for a fairisle sweater I’m dreaming of.

[ChillCassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful art book! I could look at these colors forever. I can’t wait to see the pages in person!

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this DRC from NetGalley.

I didn't know anything about using mushrooms for their pigments, so I was surprised at the variety of colors that could be made. I liked that the author showed the colors using different methods and included directions on how to make your own. I think the one thing I would have appreciated would have been actual pictures of the mushroom types, for identification purposes. At first, I thought it was just a stylistic thing to only have illustrations, but photography was included for the dye making section, so might as well include pictures with the scientific information parts. Interesting book for anyone curious about mushrooms or making natural dyes/ watercolors.

[Adrianna Heaney-velu · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Mushroom Color Atlas,” By Julie Beeler

This book was so cool to read, I loved how some were made with dried mushrooms, and some were made with fresh mushrooms making the colors. I loved how all of the colors were actually made from mushrooms. I liked the color combos. The whole thing was very cottagecore. 4 out of 5 stars.

Thank you for the ARC, Netgalley.