This post is for the backers of my book Wild Inks & Paints to be able to preview the contents and keep track of my progress. (If you’re seeing this but missed the campaign, don’t worry, the book will be available after completion.)
Captions:
🔎 Still researching/testing
🖋 Write-up still needs work
🖍 Needs images
Crossed out: all done!
COVER 🖍
Intro 🖋
BASICS
- Equipment 🖋🖍
- Safety 🔎🖋🖍
- (Techniques, may not be needed)
Definitions: dye/ink vs. pigment/paint, binder vs. medium
Binders:
Gum- Starch 🖍
- Milk 🖍
- Egg glair 🖋
- Egg tempera 🖋
Assistants & modifiers:
- Metal salts: alum, iron salt, copper salt 🖋🖍
- Acids 🖋
Alkalis- Other: sugar, preservatives 🖋
Part 1: Plant Colours
- Foraging ethics 🖋
- Harvesting advice and storage methods (dry or freeze, and how) 🖋🖍
- Phytochemicals: botanical colour compounds, their properties, how to best extract and work with each category 🖋
- Extracting dyes: flower, fruit and bark methods 🖋🖍
- Generic recipe to turn a dye into an ink 🖋🖍
- Preserving colours: wet (ink form)🖋, dry (clothlets🖍, inspissation🖋🖍), precipitated 🖋🖍(alum and chalk lakes, notes on other methods)
Dye plants:
(No breaks for seasons, instead arrange them in the order in which they appear—we get a rolling visual palette of the seasons—and use a visual device [icons in the outer margin] to indicate the gradual turning of the year, then pantry stuff)
(For each plant: names, palette, habitat, best extraction method, cautionary notes if applicable, how to store for later use, notes on preservation and lake if applicable, recipes if there are any historical or it requires special treatment)
- Daffodil 🖋
- Gorse 🖋
- Grape hyacinth 🔎🖋🖍
- Mahonia berry 🔎🖋🖍
- Yarrow 🖋🖍
- Poppy 🔎🖋🖍
- Camomile (Dyer’s and Roman) 🖋🖍
- St John’s Wort 🔎🖋🖍
- Tansy
- Mullein
- Mulberry 🖋
- Coreopsis
- Lady’s bedstraw
- Marigold 🔎🖋🖍
- Heather
- Dogwood
- Knopper gall
- Damson 🔎🖋
- Goldenrod 🔎🖋🖍
- Elderberry 🖋
- Buckthorn 🔎🖋
- Blackberry (with note on bramble tops) 🔎🖋🖍
- Pokeberry
- Chokeberry
- Privet 🔎🖋
- Shaggy ink cap 🖋
- Horse chestnut 🖋
- Hawthorn berry 🖋
- Walnut
- Acorn top 🖋🖍
- Oak marble 🖋🖍
- Sloe
- Alder cone
- Pine cone
- Cedar cone
- Ivy berry
- Avocado (now we’re in pantry territory, order TBD)
- Pomegranate skin (and flowers)
- Sumac?
- Turmeric
- Black grape
- Onion skin
- Saffron
- Sage
- Hibiscus
Part 2: Pigments
- Ochres: Types, finding, washing
- Carbon blacks: Making lamp black, making charcoal black, historical recipes
- Calcite whites: from chalk, seashells, eggshells
Part 3: Tools & Media
Tools
Quill pen: Hebraic, Arabic and Western methods of making
Bamboo pen
Brush
Paint pans
Media
- Making watercolour 🖋🖍
- Making gouache 🖋🖍
- Notes/recipes for media I don’t use and can’t judge properly: oil paint 🖋🖍, printmaking ink (eg for linocut) 🖋🖍, pastel 🔎🖋🖍
- Wheat paste 🖍
- Impasto medium 🖍
- White dough 🖍
Paper
- About art paper, issues to plan for
- Sizing/coating paper: starch, rice water, wheat paste, muqahhar recipes
- Dyeing paper (after preparing with alum, milk or other)
- Using reactivity to create patterned paper: iron solution over gall, alkali over yellow, vinegar as discharge agent, pre-drawing with milk or alum coating before dyeing
Appendix:
(can be separated if there’s a lot of material)
- Cleaning recipes
- Invisible inks
Sourcing materials
Bibliography
Endnotes (might not need them)
BACK COVER
