Inks, pigments and playing in the woods

This year, to celebrate the summer solstice, I participated in a day-long workshop foraging in the woods and then using the bounty we collected to to make inks and pigments. We also tried our hand at making fresh flower prints, and we learned how to make artists’ charcoal from willow branches. It was a fantastic day and lucky for you, I got lots of pictures!

We started off on a morning hike through the woods with very dark clouds looming. Everyone had rain gear and boots and a healthy sense of adventure, so the on and off rain that hit didn’t dampen the adventure.

The hike began with some lessons on foraging responsibly: do no damage, do not take anything that appears to be unique or in short supply, and do not take more than you need. With this in mind, most of our walk was spent observing and in my case, taking pictures. It was only on the way back that we collected a few samples of mud, rocks, flowers, leaves and bark.

It is still pretty early in the season and there were lots of wild flowers to be seen along the way. For my little pouch of keepers I picked two wild columbine, a couple of purple cow’s vetch and two bunch berries. We also saw lots of clover and daisies and other common field flowers, but I chose primarily for colour.

One bonus to all the rainy days we’ve had was that mushrooms were popping up everywhere. I do not know how to identify mushrooms, but I marveled over the variety of colours and shapes. They are easily overlooked while you are concentrating on the the trail, and trying not slip on roots and mud, but if you keep your eyes open you will spot them.

I have always loved lichen and it is abundant in our area. On this trip, we saw three different categories of lichen. Covering most of the exposed granite we saw lots of ‘crustose’ lichen, that’s easy to remember because it looks like a crust. It is so common that we often don’t even notice it. On a damp tree, we spotted some ‘foliose’ lichen patches, which looks a little leafy. To my delight, on an old decaying log, I saw some of my favorite ‘fruticose’ lichen. It has has little upside down funnels that look like fruit cups. Sometimes, all kinds of lichen crowd together and compete with moss for space. You can use lichen for creating natural dyes, but unlike mushrooms lichen takes an incredibly long time to grow so we decided to let it be for now.

Before we knew it, the morning was gone and our tummies were rumbling, so we headed back to the lodge to dry off, fuel up with a delicious lunch and get down to creating. ¹

Laura, our instructor had prepared lots of different work stations so that everyone could spread out to different activities and play at their own pace. She had a stock of pre-made inks and pigments, paper, brushes, hammers, mortars and pestles, soap, willow branches, eye droppers, pH shifting agents, and lots of glass vials and jars. Let the science begin!!

We had decided as a group to do two different ink dyes, one with birch bark and one with sumac leaves. We also had some buckthorn berries and some avocado pits and skins from Laura’s kitchen. Most natural dyes will shift colour if you alter their pH or add iron or copper salts. A separate work station had been set up so we could experiment.

I guess now would be a good time to mention the difference between ‘ink’ and ‘pigment’. Ink is made by boiling down plant matter to leech out the colour making a concentrated, water based ink. Think of boiling water with tea leaves.

Pigment on the other hand, is non-soluble and is made from pounding, or grinding various types of rock or clay. Once ground down to as fine a powder as possible, the pigment can be added to a substrate to create a paint or a pastel. Mica, can be ground into a pigment which will add sparkle and shine to your paints, inks or pastels.

In our case, we used a bit of honey and soap bar shavings to make a playdough type mixture, then rolled it into drawing pastels. We had gathered some interesting rocks and clay, and, some of us even came back with a few bits of mica.

Out near the open fire, Luke filled a tin can with slim willow branches. He added a tight lid in which he had punched air holes. Then, he tossed the sealed tin into the fire. Soon, we had a tin of artists’ charcoal!

As if we weren’t having enough fun already, there was one more activity to try. We had each gathered a few wild flowers and Laura had prepared pieces of water colour paper for us. We made a ‘flower sandwich’ with our blossoms and the two pieces of paper. Then we gently hammered until the colour of the flowers created a two-for one print.

The end of the day came very quickly! For me it was a perfect day of fresh air, good food, good company and creativity.

I came home with a nice selection of natural inks to try out on some watercolour painting. I also made a blue-green pastel stick and chose some willow charcoal sticks for some sketching.

Of course, the day got me thinking of how to use these dyes and pigments on fabrics. When I got home I ordered a book Make Ink A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking, by Jason Logan, so I could keep on learning. Who knows what will come next!

1. The venue for this workshop was Wintergreen Studios Wintergreen Studios an off-grid wilderness facility. Check it out! ↩︎