Wild Ink Set: The Curios

After I created all of the primary and secondary sets, I still had a few that I enjoyed creating with that didn’t quite fit into any category. These are the mysterious ones, misfits, oddballs. They offer some fabulous texture with the way they’re made.

Acorn cap grey-brown: This was one of the first inks I created last year. I’d been urban foraging and walked about a block from my house to find acorn caps and some acorns littering the boulevard into my development. The recipe calls for a few rusty nails, which I’d gathered from a construction site (with permission), and that first batch was more brown than grey. But that rust gives it a fantastic granulation! This batch is more grey-brown, but still with the rust granules sloughed off in the simmering.

Oak gall: Oak what? Oak galls are formed from a specific gall wasp that likes to lay eggs on oak branches, resulting in these little green-turned-brown clusters of balls attached to oak branches. You may have seen them on a walk, especially in winter. They’re ground down and simmered with ferrous sulfate. The recipe called for black, but I got a black-blue. This is the ink that goes back centuries, used to write Beowulf, the Magna Carta, and the Declaration of Independence. It’s about as colorfast as it gets, aside from black walnut–due to the tannins.

Japanese Indigo: I am a humble student of Japanese indigo to this day. I grew this plant from seed, and it flourished in my pots. As the. name states, it is used for indigo dyeing, something I’m still working to accomplish. This ink is more like a suspension, but provides a textural green with tan undertones.

Remember to shake each ink bottle well before opening and painting. Cheers!