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for printmakers
Growing Your Own Ink The Ink Garden It soon became clear that once I’d identified a number of promising colour sources, the best way to develop the research would be to establish what has come to be known as the ‘Ink Garden’, on the Cat Hill campus of Middlesex University. Similar gardens already exist, most famously those which form part of the Chelsea Physic and Oxford Botanic gardens, and each of these has provided me with much valuable information. The garden is in the shape of an artists’ palette measuring 35 by 25 feet and at present contains 19 plant species. Some are examples chosen as a result of the test work and others are plants which I know, through the literature, will provide good colour, but which I have not had a chance to test yet. The full list of plants being grown, the plant parts used and the colours obtained is shown in the table below. My intention, once we have a full crop is to produce ink in sufficient quantity to allow us to print a limited edition book on the subject of vegetable colours, complete with a set of full colour reproductions of the plants from which the inks came. I do not want to suggest that vegetable colours can hope to replace the entire oil-based and synthetic colour industry, the demand for printed matter is higher now than ever before, indeed the printing industry as a whole is said to be Britains sixth largest concern. I do say however that once all the factors, are taken into consideration, including those which concern the overall well being of the planet, then any alternative resource ought not to be ignored, especially when it adds more fun, mystery and excitement to the print process. I should also say to those of a sceptical nature, that there is at least one firm taking the production of vegetable colours seriously. Auro of Germany have been manufacturing a vegetable range of paints for some time, and at not too high a cost (Auro Pflanzenchemie GmbH, Braunschweig Germany). The step from paint to ink is, as we know, a short one, so that the commercial possibilities of producing these colours on a larger scale would seem to be more a question of will, rather than of practicability. Certainly, for the quantities of ink required for fine art printmaking, vegetable colours do represent a realistic alternative, and one that more of us might begin to explore.
Phil Shaw MA(RCA) |
