Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking

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Organized by color, and featuring lovely minimalist photography throughout, Make Ink combines science, art, and craft to instill the basics of ink making and demonstrate the beauty and necessity of engaging with one of mankind s oldest tools of communication. Learn sustainable woodland crafts and skills from our experienced instructors and take some time out to improve your own health and wellbeing. What this book provides are some initial guidelines, a few basic recipes, but most importantly - it provides you with the permission to just play, and probably fail, but have fun doing it anyway. But it’s ok, Alaska is special in many other ways:) Eucalyptus branches dry so beautifully, I love creating dried arrangements with it around my home. I know something about foraging, and nothing about ink, and this makes it all sound very interesting and approachable.

Logan moves on foot around New York City, foraging everything from rusty nails to wild berries and taking them home to make ink. As part of my commitment to a more sustainable art practice, I’m exploring creating my own art materials. As a newbie was a bit confused about using vinegar - definitely find the cleaning vinegar if you can, it doesn't smell like the clear (edible) stuff you generally see on sale and does a better job. Get lots of small airtight jars and some pipettes so you can divide up a batch of ink after draining it, and experiment with adding different amounts of gum arabic so you can vary the thickness of the ink to suit your project. With all this said, I’ve always embraced an intuitive and experimental approach to color extraction.

After discovering how easy it is to create ink using plants and food scraps, I never looked at anything the same again. As a newbie though, it was a very approachable introduction that has me very excited to continue learning.

A heartfelt treatise to the wonderful world that is colors and hidden colors in all kinds of nature, including the manmade. I've had a fascination with ink, pens and nature for many years and this book certainly gave a fascinating aspect about making ink from nature and even from some unexpected sources. Every summer my mom and I go blueberry picking in the Alaskan mountains and fill our freezers with endless berries.On a snowy day in 2017 I took my first stroll along the West Toronto Railpath with the artist Jason Logan.