A brief guide to making your own natural inks
From acorn caps to sumac, wild grape to goldenrod, and even and especially buckthorn, DIY paints are available everywhere! Making your own ink doesn't require fancy art skills or green thumbs, just a curiosity about the natural world and the trees, flowers, bark and berries all around us. Come meet the plants!
This website is a companion to the free Culture Days "Painting With Plants" workshop facilitated by Kate Hayday, Maker's Dozen, for the City of Quinte West.
At our Culture Days workshop, we focused on four plants available for wild foraging and ink-making in the fall: Acorn Caps, Staghorn Sumac, Goldenrod, and Wild Grape. Let's learn a little more about these plants, including some fun facts -- can you guess which one is part of a plant-insect relationship that dates back 48 million years?
Acorns are a wonder food of the forest. Oaks are a very important "mast" (aka fruit) producing tree, meaning they provide food for lots of forest critters. So we leave the food part behind, and only collect the discarded caps for our ink-making.
A tenacious plant that can grow in even the scrappiest conditions, you'll soon start spotting sumac everywhere from conservation areas to the sides of highways. Sumac is a member of the Anacardiaceae family, whose other members include cashew, mango, pistachio and poison ivy.
Good old goldenrod. Coming into bloom at the end of summer and beginning of fall, its beautiful golden colour lights up roadsides throughout the province. Being so visible and showy right when people's seasonal allergies kick in, poor old goldenrod often takes the blame for people's snuffly noses and itchy eyes. But the good news is -- you are (probably) not allergic to goldenrod!
Growing on fencelines, up trees, and weaving itself into bushes, wild grape vines can be found everywhere in southern Ontario. In addition to being edible -- making a delicious wild grape jelly! -- the fruits of wild grape make a wonderful purple ink, with great staying power. When you paint with wild grape purple, your painting will still be purple even years later.
Remember that the more plant matter you take, the less is left behind for the next critter, who might need that plant for food or shelter. Flowers, bark and nuts are all life-sustaining materials for some animal, insect, or other. Take only from what’s abundant, and only as much as you need. If you can’t leave lots behind, don’t take any.
Whenever possible, choose to harvest invasive species. Harvesting invasives is a loophole where you can take and give back at the same time! Learn more about using invasive species in your art here.
Be mindful of where you forage. Roadsides are often sprayed with pesticides, and Ontario is home to toxic berries and mushrooms. Use guides and talk to experts. Know what you’re picking. If you’re not certain, skip it.
Asking for permission to forage is a chance to make a new friend, which is so much better than an enemy. Be respectful of both shared and private spaces and give foragers a good name.
Not all colour comes from “fresh” or wild sources. Acorn caps make wonderful ink. Let the chipmunks do the work and then gather up what’s left! Lots of kitchen scraps produce colour too. Anything that stains your cutting board is worth a second look. Look twice at those onion scraps, beets, and bits of red cabbage. If you have space, consider growing a garden to produce your art-making supplies. You can produce new habitat for birds and bees, while also creating a personal foraging spot. Win-win!
"We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings." ~Robin Wall Kimmerer