Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking is a beautiful guide to making your own inks written by Jason Logan. Published in 2018, the book includes a guide to foraging for plants (and pieces of metal) that you can use to make ink, about 90 pages of recipes, and a final section on how to test ink along with examples of ink art and more info on natural inks.
Beautifully illustrated throughout, the book includes information on Logan’s discovery of natural inkmaking and how he started The Toronto Ink Company. The book concludes with a conversation between Logan and novelist Michael Ondaatje.
Make Ink is a valuable guide to natural inkmaking but is also a beautiful book that would make a great gift or look great on a coffee table. The compelling images, selection of artist’s work in ink, and recipes makes it a book you’ll return to over and over.
Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking
By Jason Logan
Hardcover, 193 pages, published 2018 by Abrams
Listed at $35 but often available for $22-$30
Keep reading for pictures of the book, and more ideas on natural inkmaking
Images from Make Ink
Table of contents
Jason Logan on Ink
From page 23:
I am often asked what exactly ink is. It’s not paint—which is a liquid color used mainly for creating images or covering surfaces. What distinguishes ink from other art supplies is its use as a tool for communication. People have been leaving marks with berries, burnt sticks, or colored rocks since the dawn of humanity—but the use of ink as a transmitter of language can be traced back to the first evidence of civilization in China or Mesopotamia: most often on shards of pottery, featuring markings that historians say were first mostly account ledgers. But ink quickly became more than a decorator or calculator… In fact, ink and pen were as vital to the growth of civilization as the wheel or the cultivation of wheat. Gain the ability to permanently mark symbols on a flat surface meant that ideas could be saved, transported, and shared. Recipes, mathematical formulas, banking, poetry, music, diagrams, history, philosophy, and stories are inseparable from the history of ink.
Other Guides to Natural Inks and Dyes
There are a few other guides to foraging and making your own inks and dyes from natural materials.
Botanical Inks: Plant-to-Print Dyes, Techniques, and Projects
This 2018 book covers how to make dyes and inks with plants. More focused on dyeing fabrics and other techniques, the book also includes information of making your own ink.
Written by Babs Behan, the book is listed at $23 but generally available for less.
Wild Color: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes
A guide to dying (not making ink), Wild Color outlines the equipment needed and details 65 plants that can be used to make natural dyes. Listed at $25 but typically available for less, the book was published in 2010 and written by Jenny Dean.
Do you have a favorite guide for making natural inks or dyes? Let us know in the comments.
