How to Make Ink

Changing depending on the needs, purposes, and available materials, ink is known to have been made for 2.58 million years (since the Paleolithic Period).

How to make ink:

1. Google “how to make ink” to refresh your memory of an article you read online somewhere.
2. Trace back your search history.
3. For the most part follow the steps from multiple recipes that you have gathered together over the years (3 maybe 5 years?) from several sources.
4. (these are just some steps that you can use, perhaps you already have other ones).
5. Don’t forget to include notes and memories from previous conversations and things you’ve done before.
6. Remember that instructions and recipes are fluid and shift like text, sometimes slowly and imperceptibly; other times quickly.
7. None of this is exhaustive, exact, or conclusive.
8. The ink is the substrate to hold your ideas, fears, and memories. Maybe these will shift, maybe they will fade, maybe they will stay forever. I often don’t know why I make ink myself.
9. All of this information is partly accurate: part story, part opinion, part procrastination.

Supplies you might need:

• Gloves
• Container for holding/gathering
• Particulate filtering mask (especially when you are grinding the charcoal for ink as it can get a bit dusty¹
• Funnel
• Paper coffee filter or cheesecloths
• Stove or hotplate
• Cloves (these act to preserve the inks and keep them from gathering mold, you might still get some mold over time – especially if you have made a lot of ink – but just scrape it off and it should still be good)
• Stainless steel pot (used only for ink making or similar activities, not for eating). Copper, steel, or cast iron pots can react with acidic material, so it is best to use stainless steel pots
• Mallet, hammer/mortar, or pestle
• Gum Arabic, or Acacia Gum (optional), a natural gum derived from acacia tree sap, can be added to the ink to make it a bit thicker and give more shine when it dries. It is available in liquid or powdered form at art supply stores²
• Iron water or rust garden water (ferrous sulphate: acts as a modifier and reacts with tannin to make darker colours)³
• Plant material (gather them together with friends, from walks, with care)⁴

Plant/material that makes good ink:

Plants high in tannins typically make great sources of ink which are usually a light to dark brown: oak galls, acorn caps, some leaves (birch, willow, rose), bark.

Carbon is another source, but requires additional processing: vine charcoal, captured smoke. 

Plants containing flavonoids (yellow) are the most readily available in the ecosystem that I currently reside in (Treaty 6 Territory, in the Prairie Grasslands, in so-called Canada). 

Flavonoids are found in leaves, onion skins, bark, yellow flowers, and plants. (Most red/pink/purple plants, berries, and flowers found in the northern hemisphere contain anthocyanin which is not a stable colourant and will quickly fade).

(these are just some steps that you can use, perhaps you already have other ones).

How to make ink
[with acorn caps (and a friend)]:

1. Acorn caps were collected by my friend T. at the tennis courts after a game.⁵
2. We smashed them into small pieces with a hammer substitute outside the studio.⁶
3. The mashed-up acorn caps were placed into a container, covered with water to soften the materials, and left to soak overnight.⁷
4. After a few days, we poured the mixture into a pot and slowly and steadily simmered for a few hours (around 3-4) with the lid off to reduce the amount of water.
5. We then let the soup cool and then strained through a funnel with a coffee filter or cheesecloth.
6. We later poured the material into a glass jar with a lid that can be tightened;
7. And added a few tablespoons of iron water.⁸
8. Optional at this stage: add a few tablespoons of Gum Arabic to make the ink a bit more luminous and a bunch of whole cloves to help stop mold from growing in the jar.

Store in the fridge (label with the material and date) and it will keep for quite some time.

Thank your friends for gathering, for sharing in the making, for the internet sources, for the books that we’ve read.

Eventually, make some (ok) drawings with the ink, and write a few letters, some half starts and some almost finished.

None of this is exhaustive, exact, or conclusive.

Iron Gall ink
[another recipe, but easier to make]:

Iron gall ink is produced by the reaction of tannic acid extracted from galls,⁹ a type of growth on trees (typically oak but can also be found on other plants), with copperas (ferrous sulfate or vitriol).

This ink was one of the most widely used types of ink in Europe through the 9th century until the 20th century. But because of the iron in the ink, many manuscripts written with it have faded or cracked (if there is too much iron, it will start to erode the paper).

There are no shortage of recipes for iron oak gall and thousands of variations, but I follow these simple steps from an English collection of ink recipes called “A Booke of Secrets” (1596) which is a translation of the Dutch publication “A bouck of wondre” 1513, which in turn is a translation of a German version. The original is in the Yale Center for British Art. I found the transcription of it via a Blogspot website:

Another of the same sort, but easier to make: Take the beaten gauls, and put them in the water, doe the like with the victriall in a pot by it selfe, let those two waters stand, and when you have cause to use inke, poure out of each pot a like quantitie, and it will be blacke, then put into it a little beaten gum, and it will bee good inke.

This is my translation:

Crush the galls, soak them in water [heat it to speed up the process], in a separate pot, have your iron water ready. When you are ready to make the ink, mix equal parts of each, add a little bit of Gum Arabic, and it will be a good ink.

Collecting oak galls is best in the fall once the wasps have emerged from them. You might find them on the ground or attached to the branches – depending on the type of wasp or oak trees the oak galls will vary in size and appearance.

All of this is partly accurate information, part stories, part opinion, part procrastination.

Ink [from apple leaves]:

1. Reach up to the apple tree in the fall;
2. As high as your shaky knees will allow;
3. Pick some apples;
4. From the extras, take branches and leaves;
5. Cover with water;¹⁰
6. Fill a large pot and bring it to just below boiling;
7. Let soak for a day or more;
8. Strain;
9. Add some Gum Arabic or honey if you want more shine.

The ink is just the substrate to hold your ideas, fears, and memories. Maybe these will shift, or maybe they will stay forever, maybe they will fade.

Have you made ink using any of the recipes described in this guide? Have you made something with it, or do you have your own recipe you would like to share? We would love to see/read/hear about it — please fill out this form here share your process!

Charcoal Ink
[Future Library 2020 Edition]:

Making charcoal ink, from the Future Library, Taryn Kneteman and Alma Louise Visscher, 2020.

In 2020, we (Taryn Kneteman and Alma Louise Visscher) created several bottles of charcoal ink that we gave as gifts to makers and other folks in our community. This ink was made on the last evening of 2020 with the hope of creating something from the residual energy and material of the previous year. We made the ink at a recreational site managed by the City of Edmonton, situated in the North Saskatchewan River Valley in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (so-called Edmonton). 

Carbon cycles

This ink was made from gathered willow branches that we put in empty Altoids mints tins and then placed in the embers of a campfire for several hours. This method carbonizes the wood (slowly removes the oxygen from the wood, only leaving the charcoal – which is carbon and minerals – behind). The carbonized wood was then pulverized to a fine powder in a coffee grinder and water and Gum Arabic were added to it.

Carbon reservoirs

This project was an inquiry into the living, tangled, shifting, and changeable nature of shared resources, natural processes, and collective making or not making. The ink was given with no expectations or parameters of a final product or results and the participants were invited to use it however they felt was necessary for them.

More on the Charcoal Ink (Future Library Special Edition).

Microscopic images courtesy the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) Lab, University of Alberta.

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Feature image: Alma Louise Visscher, How to make ink, collage, 2022.

Image description: A black and white collage made up of crumpled paper and a microscopic image of handmade ink. On the left, oriented vertically across the entire image, is the title: “How to make ink” in capital, large black font. On the bottom right of the image, across six lines and in small, white font reads: “or maybe finish a drawing / overthink the wrong things / think slowly / procrastinate all of the above / make a recipe for more time / or make nothing.”

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Alma Louise Visscher is a second-generation white settler living and working in amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 Territory. She creates fabric-based installations, soft sculptures, jewelry and drawings that consider resources and material culture and the poetic possibilities and problems within them. She is a recipient of the 2020 Edmonton Artist Trust Award and is thankful for the support from Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Edmonton Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. As an artist, teacher, cultural worker, and friend, Alma has focused on art programming and education, collaboration, and peer mentorship. [www.almalouisevisscher.com]

1. Considerations for safe working environments are important even when working with natural materials; not all natural materials are necessarily safe for consumption, and not all material transformations are benign. When boiling plant matter, make sure you have proper air ventilation and that the ink is out of reach of children and animals.
2. Gum Arabic, a gum from the acacia tree, dissolves quickly in even just a little bit of water and forms a film around molecules (pigment, aroma, or flavour) helping to keep them suspended.  It is used as a thickener in ink, food, and textile production. Because of its use with ink, pigment and fabric printing, Gum Arabic was a key ingredient in Europe’s textile industries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Europe’s extractive and exploitive colonial activities in Africa were in part motivated by an attempt to control the supply and trade of this material from where it was harvested in the Sahel region.
   
   In present day manufacturing, it is also known as E414 or I414 and is used in the production of a variety of soft drinks, sweets, and makeup. The gum is currently harvested commercially from acacia trees primarily from Sudan, Senegal and Somalia (an area that is highly affected by the effects of climate  change).
3. How to make your own iron water: take some rusty nails or similar type objects (I use old railway nails that I got from a neighbour). Place in a glass jar with a lid and cover with two parts vinegar and one part water (a 2:1 ratio). Let sit for 3 weeks or so until the metal is dissolved (partially or fully), and then strain out any sediments. You can now use this to modify inks that are high in tannin from a brown to a dark purple-black, or shift (or “sadden” which is a word used in the natural dyeing process) inks that are yellow to a greenish colour. You will only need a little bit; use it sparingly as the iron in high quantities is corrosive and will eventually eat away at paper or fabric. When working with iron water, use gloves and wear a mask.
4. On gathering and collecting:  My aim is to be mindful and consider the implications of where and what I am gathering – whose land I am collecting from – and the relationship I have to that place. For me, as a second generation white settler living and making art in Treaty 6 Territory, I try to use the plants growing here with care and consideration (which may include not collecting them in the first place). I also make sure that I can positively identify the plants I am using or growing; that I am not gathering something extremely poisonous or endangered; that I am taking care to gather only a little bit of each plant or area; that I am not disturbing plant root systems; and that I am disposing the seeds and leftover plant material responsibly if it is an invasive species.
5. T and I used about 2 cups: you will need about 2 cups of the acorn caps to make 1 cup of ink ++ picking older acorn caps in the early spring before the new growth will help make sure what you are gathering isn’t a viable food source, or seed for a potential oak tree.
6. A piece of wood is what we used, but a mortar and pestle, a big rock, or a mallet might be easier. Smaller pieces = more surface area = more material extraction.
7. You can also forget about this mixture for a while and let it sit for up to a month – the mixture will continue to ferment and more colour can be extracted.
8. See above for how to make your own iron water.
9. Oak galls are tiny orb-shaped growths on oak trees (found on either branches or leaves). Wasps lay their larva on oak leaf buds and their secretions of chemicals create the oak gall which they feed on and which provides them with a protective structure. When the wasps transform into adults, they leave their oak gall nest by burrowing a tiny circular hole out of the gall. The resulting empty oak gall is very high in tannic acid. When gathering, look for those oak galls with a tiny hole on them – this way you can ensure that the wasps are gone. You will find them on branches, on the back of leaves, or on the ground surrounding oak trees in the fall.
10. There are no ratios, as much as you can fit in your pot. Cut the branches and leaves down into smaller sizes if it fits better).