How to Make Acorn Ink & Gum Arabic
homemade art supplies from local materials
extracting the tannans from acorns for ink; foraged fruit tree gums to make gum arabic
I have to admit….I am obsessed with discovering the utility of the plants around me. By this I mean, I love to explore the ways in which I can incorporate plants into my life - herbal medicines, food, art. I have written previously about using plants to dye fabric, yarn and string, using plants to make baskets, making herbal remedies and incorporating home-grown food into daily meals.
Recently I thought I would try to make ink from acorns I collected last Autumn from the park which sits in the center of my little village, as I have been determined to create more art supplies from scratch using locally-found items.
This idea came on after reading Caroline Ross’ book, Found and Ground. In the book she talks about making ink from oak galls, but alas, I didn’t have any. I did, though, have a little basket of acorns and I remember reading that ink could be made with those, as well as alder cones. I used a process similar to Caroline’s:
place acorns in a pot that is only used for art, not food (I used an aluminium sauce pan I found at the op-shop) and cover with water
bring to the boil, then allow to gently boil for about 30 minutes; turn off the heat
later in the day add a bit more water and repeat Step 2; do this over a couple days to extract the tannans out of the acorns
after a couple days the liquid will be dark brown and thickened (but not very thick - more on this later)
strain out the liquid and compost the acorns
at this point you could separate the ink into two containers and add a little bit of iron water to one jar to make a black ink if you like; I left mine brown. Add either one drop of tee tree essential oil or one clove to the jar(s) as a preservative, label and store in the fridge
The ink will be a bit thin for writing/drawing with, but you can add gum Arabic to thicken it. This can be purchased, although making it from scratch is quite simple…you just need to forage for some fruit tree gum - the solid sap you see on the bark of fruit trees.
from left to right: gum from fruit trees (cherries, plums, peaches, etc.), gum arabic, brown acorn ink, lyrebird feather found while camping
To make the gum arabic I followed Caroline’s recipe:
crush 1/2 teaspoon of the foraged gum into a fine powder
place the crushed gum in a small glass jar/cup, add water to half full, stir well and allow to sit overnight - it will thicken-up nicely
pour into a small pot and heat until most of the liquid evaporates (it should be the consistency of honey)
pour the mixture through a fine strainer into a glass jar with a good-fitting lid
add one part local honey (therefore, 9 parts gum Arabic mixture) and stir well
store in a clean glass jar in the fridge
To thicken the ink, add 10% gum arabic to your acorn ink and mix well (again a 1:9 ratio).
In future, I have every intention of making paper out of sunflower stalks and other spent garden items to go with my homemade ink…..