Wild In Challenge / Week 2
Week 2
Oh boy! It’s now time to DIVE IN and make some ink! I have done a lengthy how-to blog post over at Mother Earth News on the steps I take to make my ink. You can read the full post here . Please note- there really is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do this. The only advice I’d really like to give is to watch your pot as it boils because once you are down to the bottom of the pot, the water will boil dry fast! This has happened to me before- I just simply added more water to the pot and boiled it a little more. You may lose some of the intensity of the color but it’s not that big of a deal. *Also- please know what plants you are using and if they may emit any not-so-good for you fumes. You may want to have the vent on, or make your ink in a well ventilated area (or outside). Any suspicions about toxic plants- I would just stay away and pick something else.
Your Assignments for this week:
Make ink using the plants you harvested from Week 1 (plants can be fresh or dry)
See how many colors you can get from the plant material. From your batch of ink, while it’s still warm, divide it into 3 separate containers and add 1tsp baking soda to one, 1tsp citric acid/lemon juice to another container, and vinegar to the last container. Do they change the pH levels and shift the final color at all?
Bottle your inks. I personally like to use 1 or 2 oz Amber Dropper Bottles. Be sure to label your bottles with the plant specimen. I use masking tape to do this for easy removal and I add a drop of color to the tape for a visual reference too. You can find these bottles on my Resources tab on my website. Mason jars, baby food jars work well too for this. Be sure to preserve your ink- all that info is in the blog post on making ink.
Create a color swatch of each color along with any variations you made in Step 2. Be sure to label each swatch with the specimen, any pH shifter you added and the date you made the ink. Believe it or not- different plants make different colors depending on the seasons!
Create an Art Page with your new ink. I like to make a Herbarium page of sorts to include a photograph or pressed specimen, what the different meanings and uses are, and include small color swatches of the inks I was able to make.
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