Sap Green Ink from Ripe Buckthorn Berries

Ripe Buckthorn Berries

Foraging for ripe buckthorn berries here in town.  There are ample sources, now that I know what to look for.  Since they are considered invasive, no one minds someone picking the berries because it takes them out of circulation.   For collecting ripe buckthorn berries, I recommend wearing a glove of some sort.  The berries have some sugar in them, and are slightly sticky, more than they stain your hands. 

Warning: Do not eat buckthorn berries.  They may look like something good to eat, similar to blueberries, but they'll give you the trots. So save it for ink!

For the recipe, I consulted Jason Logan's book Make Ink: A Forager's Guide to Natural Ink Making.  

I also consulted this recipe from Threadbourne, which differs slightly from Jason's recipe.  Turns out there are multiple old recipes for extracting color from buckthorn berries.  I did the usual color extraction by covering the berries with water, and then simmering until the water was a deep rich purple.  I did 2 rounds as the mash still appeared to hold some color after the first round.

 

The lovely purple color left in the pot.  This is THE perfect purple in my mind! 

I was careful to collect all the spent mash, and any stray seeds, as I did not want them to get loose on our compost pile, or cause havoc in the park next door.  I double-bagged it all and put it in the garbage ...

 

Here's the fresh buckthorn berry ink -- a nice purple color. 

This is another one of those "living" inks that change by the minute as it dries.  

 

Theadbourne used alum to modify the ph -- which I also have on hand for dyeing fabric.

One of the goals of this exercise was to achieve the perfect sap green -- which I did by adding about 1/4 teaspooon to about 4 Tablespoons of the fresh buckthorn berry ink.

 

And this is what I got!  It worked beautifully! 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a bit hard to see the green here, but it's there!

   Here they are next to each other -- 

Sap Green on the left, and original fresh buckthorn berry juice on the right.

Here's another experiment in PH:

 

Another small jar of the fresh buckthorn berry ink (purple), to which I added some vinegar ...

  

The vinegar immediately turned the purple juice red!

 

I was expecting a magenta ink, but that's not quite how it dried on paper ...

 

The vinegar made it come out more of a teal green.

This ink is susceptible to color changes according to PH levels.  You can get colors anywhere from blue and purple to green to yellow to magenta to browns and yellows.  Jason Logan recommends adding lye (sodium hydroxide, or Red Devil Lye) crystals, which I have on hand for soap-making and clearing clogged drains.  Actually, he recommends adding lye water (1/2 tsp lye in a 1/2 cup cold water) by the dropper-ful until you get the color you want.  I did not use lye for these color experiments.

Jason also talked about soda ash -- which is another ph modifier used in hand dyeing fabric-- also on hand from a long history of crafting and color experiments.  I did not actually use soda ash for these experiments.