sample of elderberry ink/paint with modifiers
I made a note to myself recently to purchase more business cards, but when I went to order them I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to pay such a ridiculous amount of money for them (because most of them will probably be tossed in the trash) and they don’t really represent ‘me’ very well. Yes, they give all of my details with a pretty picture, they are quite attractive, but somehow they just don’t portray me or my work accurately.
As I walked away from the computer I had an idea (I am full of ideas!)…..I could just make my own business cards. So I started to daydream about them - what kind of picture or drawing they would have, what words, in what kind of writing (font), on what paper, with what ink?
Well, here was a “can or worms”! I could purchase paper. No, I could make the paper! I could purchase the ink. No, I could make the ink! I could order a stamp. No, I could make a wood carving instead! You see where this is going , right? What could have been an easy online purchase has now become a serious endeavor.
When I started to think about how I would do all of these things, I knew I would want everything to be found or foraged locally. So, the first thing I learned to do was to make ink out of a basket of acorns I had in the house - something I often do is collect natural items when I walk around - shells and rocks from the beach, seed pods from the bush, leaves from my walks into town and back, and, of course, acorns from the oak trees in the park.
Acorns being rendered down for brown ink and stone fruit tree resin for gum Arabic
Acorn ink is a beautiful brown color, although you can make it black by adding a rusty old nail into the liquid or iron-water (water that has had rusty old nails soaking in it for a while). The finished product came out a bit thin, so I learned to make gum Arabic out of the sap that oozes from the stone fruit trees in the garden. Gum Arabic adds a thickness to the ink and allows you to write more smoothly with it. I have more recently learned to make ink with black walnut hulls, too, which produce a more purple-brown color than the acorns (which leans toward orange hues).
Now I need to learn to wood-carve and make paper, too. I have both things underway, although learning and practicing these things takes time, you know. A friend of mine has brought me some pine wood (it is soft and easier to carve into than harder woods) so I can start to wittle and get a feel for wood carving. Then, I will try a relief carving to use as a stamp on my business cards. Currently, I use a beet (beetroot) as my logo and I think I will stick with that. As a side note - I would like to make beet ink for the red/pink color of the beet and elderberry ink/paint can be modified to give a lovely green color which I would like to use for the beet greens (see the first picture - bottom left).
samples of acorn and black walnut hull inks/paints with modifiers
As for the paper-making, the homeschool group I lead is going to make paper next term out of local weeds and plants from the park and creek; maybe starting with the flower spike of cattails/rush, then we might move onto other fiberous leaves that we can forage for around the creek.
As always, I will keep you updated on my/our progress, which you can be assured will be slow. Speaking of which, this is the point I wanted to make here…..being ‘analog’ means slowing things down, doing thinks by hand the old-fashion way. I am not suggesting we can do this with all things in our lives, but we can do it with some. And where we can’t, perhaps we can find someone who can - if you don’t sew (but you intend to learn as I do), and would love to wear hand-made clothes, find a local seamstress and support her. If you don’t knit (yet) and would love to wear woolie sweaters find a local knitter and support her. You will have fewer things in your life, but they will be of much higher quality and they will be supporting someone else livelihood and passion.
This is the true meaning of a ‘slow’ life. Slow means analog, it means creating things for yourself which you employ in your life or things you trade for the items others make (reciprocity). We have a fantasy that a slow life is one in which we sit around leisurely and idly, but it is not a life of relaxation and ease, instead it is one of continuous learning, humility, productiveness, achievement and frustration (which is far more satisying).
N x
They sound beautiful!