Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking

Description

Designer and artist Jason Logan founded The Toronto Ink Company in 2014. It started as a citizen science experiment to make eco-friendly, urban ink from street-harvested pigments. In Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking, Logan delves into the history of inkmaking and the science of distilling pigment from the natural world. Readers will learn how to forage for materials such as soot, rust, cigarette butts, peach pits, and black walnut. Then how to mix, test, and transform these ingredients into rich, vibrant inks that are sensitive to both place and environment. Organized by color, and featuring lovely minimalist photography throughout, Make Ink combines science, art, and craft. It instills the basics of ink making. In addition, it demonstrates the beauty and necessity of engaging with one of mankind’s oldest tools of communication.

Hardcover. 192 pages with 200 color photographs.

Kathy says:

I was fortunate to see Jason Logan’s brilliant foraged ink examples at Craft Ontario Gallery in Toronto as part of the Chromatic Geography conference in 2017. His exuberant and sly examples of foraged color were striking and memorable. So I was excited to hear that a book was in the works. Similarly, I think you will really enjoy his approach to exploring communication through ink making. Now indeed, color will be everywhere at our feet! Instead of staring at our phones, we’ll start picking up leaves, squashed berries and husks. We’ll be wondering what color surprises are hidden within. This is a wonderful guide to help us concoct natural beauty from found and foraged sources.

Related:

Try your hand at painting with Biohue’s dye inks! Each ink is foraged, purchased, or grown as mindfully and sustainably as possible. They require very little water to paint on paper.