Silver Acorn Cap Ink

  

Acorn Caps from an Oak Tree

Foraging in my own neighborhood, I was able to get silver acorn caps this week.  They were so many, falling around us like rain last week!  The lady who owns that house and giant oak, sweep them off the sidewalk daily, and bag them for anyone who wants them.  I told her I'd be attempting Silver Acorn Cap Ink.

I used this recipe from The Make Ink: A Forager's Guide to Making Natural Ink book.

I made adjustments to the proportions in the recipe according to the amount of plant material I had to work with.  I had about 5 cups of acorns, so I added 7 cups of water to the simmering pot, along with a canning jar lid that was beginning to rust, and a smallish ball of steel wool for the iron mordant.

This simmering post also smelled quite nice!  I'm not sure how to describe it -- Earthy, but not heavy.  Nutty.

It quickly turned the water to a lovely reddish tea (Do people drink oak caps for tea?)

After 45 minutes, it was a dark brown, and I could not see through to the bottom of the pot.  That looks quite promising for ink!

 

 

Failed Mordant

From what I know of iron mordants, it should react with the tannin and turn the ink gray or black.  I'm not seeing that here, which makes me think that I didn't have enough available iron in the pot.  The steel wool may have had a coating on it that prevents it from rusting.  And the canning lid was beginning to rust, but it may not have had enough.

I'll try again with some finer steel wool.  After I bottled the ink, I added a pinch of a finer steel wool.  After a week, that dissolved, and turned the ink gray -- as expected.  I had smaller bottle that I left as a control.  That jar stayed brown. The power of iron mordants!

 

The spent acorn caps.

Practical notes on using this ink:  The author says that it get darker as it oxidizes, meaning that if you apply it to paper in the evening, it will be darker by the morning.  It's quite a magical effect if you have the patience to wait it out!

 

Silver Oak Cap Ink (no iron mordant)

This would be the control batch.  It's a perfectly serviceable brown ink. 

 

Here it is with iron mordant -- It's getting a little darker. This one may have dried before it oxidized, but it's definitely darker than the batch above.

Although I filtered this ink, it still looks like there are lots of particulates floating around.

 

Here's a texture on an old library catalog card.  This is more the color I expected. 

 

Lots of interesting nuances with this one!

 

I think this was a combination of Silver Oak Cap and Sumac ink.  The color shifted again to have a slight green tint to it. 

 

Another Sumac and Silver Oak Cap Ink Texture. 

 Ode to Fall!

Sumac Ink: Take 2

 Sumac Berries.

The kitchen smells divine this am with sumac berries and oak caps simmering away on the stove for foraged inks! 

Background: Last Feb./early March, I found a gorgeous head of sumac berries at my feet on a walk in my Dad's woods.  So I lovingly and carefully brought it home with the intention of making ink with it at a later date ...  Unfortunately, mice (or some other critter in my basement carried every last sumac berry away from my own stash.  I had to wait for the new season ...  As luck would have it, my workplace has an edge of greenery that includes Staghorn Sumac, with some heads at an easy level to reach.  (They are all very tall in my Dad's woods, so I was glad to find one at my feet last March.)

I used Melissa Mary Jenkins recipe for Sumac Ink.   I made some adjustments to the proportions due to the fact that I didn't have as much plant material as her recipe called for.

From 4 medium-sized seed heads, I got about 3/4 cup of sumac berries.  Be careful breaking the berries away from the branches as there are sharp and picky barbs that hold the berries to the stalk.

I added an equal amount of vinegar to the simmering pot, along with 3/4 tsp. alum and let it bubble for 30 min.  

It smelled light and citrus-y.  Not quite lemon, but in that vein of sunlight and brightness.  

I had to add a bit more vinegar after 20 minutes, because most of the liquid had simmered away by then.  And then again ...  No problem.

I did not let it sit overnight in the hopes of extracting even more color from the berries.

 

It came out with a nice red-brown color.

I did add some gum arabic to help it flow better as an ink, and a clove as preservative.

Now to play a bit with this ink:

 

Sumac Ink on Watercolor paper. 

Sumac Ink - coffee filter paper and on a library catalog card.

 

 

 

Sumac Berries.

Making Ink: Hibiscus Tea

 

Hibiscus Tea Ink with Gum Arabic, writes red, then turns purple as it oxidizes.  

This is after the ink had dried, and oxidized.

 

I made a batch of Hibiscus Ink, using Hibiscus Tea, which includes not only hibiscus, but also blackberry leaves and Indian lemongrass.

 Hibiscus Ink, red as blood in the pot.  

Here the leftovers dried in the pan, before it had a chance to oxidize and turn purple.

I used a recipe that advised 1/2 cup of hibiscus flowers (in my case the whole box of tea) with 1 cup of boiling water.  I let it steep for a few hours, then squeezed out the tea bags, and simmered the remaining blood red liquid down until it reduced to about 1/4 cup.  

I then separated it so I'd have 2 small spice jars with about 2 tablespoons of ink in each jar.  

I added about 1/8 tsp of gum arabic to one jar, and a few drops of tung oil to the other jar.  

Here's the recipe that advised adding tung oil.

The ink is a deep red color--like Ox Blood, but when you write with it, or set it to paper, it quickly oxidizes as it dries and turns purple. Nice!

 

Do I have a preference for the gum arabic ink over the tung oil?  Yes--I have to say I prefer the gum arabic -- but prob. only because I'm used to it in other inks, and the fact that it makes for a smooth flowing writing ink.   

Did I go out and buy tung oil specifically for this experiment in ink-making? No -- It was left over from another wood finishing project a few years ago.

 

Here is a blot print where the red ink is still wet.

 Here are some of the other ink sample tests, along with one of the spent tea bags that was died a lovely red. color.  This was a mercurial ink, in that sometimes it changed to purple, and sometimes it stayed red on paper, as you can see int he samples above.  The only thing I can think of to say about that is the speed at which it dried.  If it dried on paper BEFORE It had a chance to oxidize, it stayed red -- This was more likely to happen if I spread a thin layer of ink.  If it took a long time to dry (meaning I applied it thicker than not, it took a longer time to dry and turned purple on paper.

 

This one dried on paper before it had a chance to oxidize, so it kept the red color. 

I love how this card turned out.