Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking

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Like other readers here, I think the guide was great for making art and projects with others and also learning about the properties of our surroundings, but I’d want more tips on preventing molds and preserving the paint made, especially for the purpose of sharing them with others.

To keep a pen writing smoothly, you will need to filter out little grains of plant matter very carefully, and use less binder, which can also gum up the nib.

I'm totally enjoying it but the only issue I have is that the print of the text is a bit on the small size and my eyes are straining to read it. Personally, I try not to worry about the image I am creating and just sit back and let the ink do its thing on paper,” Logan says. Now 4 years later, I’ve stepped away from doing floral design work, but the same principles of reusing and repurposing apply anytime I have florals around. In the end, Logan says, “As an artist, what most excites me is how I can disappear, how I can let the materials themselves be the story. And also I’m very keen to reduce the dye liquid down for a pen ink, to see if I can use my own home made natural sustainable ink in my fountain pen, so that my plant notes are written with plants!

One teaspoon of gum Arabic per cup of liquid meant I had a gorgeous stable liquid to use with a hastily fashioned goose quill pen. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. As you experiment, you may want to gather a few other handy tools such as: mortar and pestle, funnel, potato masher, tongs, rubber gloves, stainless steel bowls, muslin, and a good assortment of well sealed glass jars. Depending on the plant material, you may need to utilize a ventilated room, open a nearby window, or work outdoors during the extraction process.Logan shares his tips and recipes on hand-making inks and foraging in his book Make Ink, in his newsletter The Colour, and in the documentary The Colour of Ink (out in spring of 2022).

Throughout the ages civilisations have used a variety of materials to create inks and paints; from trees, insects to metals or lampblack, a kind of soot that is a by-product of fire.It also feels like a radical act to reclaim a traditional craft in this way and step away from consuming mass-manufactured stuff. Which ever option you choose, look at the rubber stamp carefully before you press onto fabric to make sure that it’s evenly coated. All through the making of that first batch, one image stayed with Jason, who works as an artist and creative director: “I had that little square bottle of black walnut ink in my head. I poured the mixture into a couple of small bowls and let the paint evaporate on a windowsill for a few days.

Pictured pigments from left to right use the following main ingredients: coffee, black bean, sumac, black walnut, spinach, red cabbage, iris petal, elderberry, turmeric, grape juice, pokeweed berry, buckthorn berry, jicama, onion skin, wild grape, and goldenrod.The labelling gives your ink meaning and also helps as a reference for later experiment comparisons.