How do you go about creating your own pigments and inks for use in calligraphy and illumination?
I’ve been working on improving the look of my journal lately, turning it from something simple to something more eye pleasing and expressive. I’ve started tinkering with Illumination, and I’ve been practicing calligraphy for the last few months. One thing I’d like to start learning how to do is make my own inks for use in my journal, both in the calligraphy, and in the illumination facets of it. Does anyone know how to make calligraphy and illumination inks (preferably with fairly easy to acquire components), or know any links with instructions on how to make them? Thank you all in advance for your assistance.
You need a solvent, or a couple of them, depending upon the pigments or dyes you want to use.
The ancient Chinese used the carbon from lamps to make black ink. I think a solution of 1/2 rubbing alcohol and 1/2 water would make an ink, but you need a lot of carbon from lamps to do this.
You could repeatedly burn the end of a rope and grind the resulting charcoal into a fine powder. It it’s lumpy after dissolving it, strain it.
There are many natural pigments and resins and flowers that will serve to make inks. Dragon’s blood resin is an incense, but if you grind it into a powder and mix it with acetone (fingernail polish remover) and water, you can make a nice red ink from it.
Be careful with solvents like acetone as they are highly flammable and you need to use them with adequate ventilation.
For blue ink, the ancients used woad and indigo. You might be able to find a source for this on the web, but they might only be sold in bulk.
You can boil lemon juice to make a brownish ink.
Check out a good herbal textbook.
The Saint John’s Bible
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