#making ink

Bio: Five years ago, I founded the Toronto Ink Company as a kind of citizen science experiment in collecting the pigments of the city, and making ink with them.  Along the way, I have worked with artists, illustrators, children, scientists and researchers from around the world. I have made ink from discarded drywall, copper wire, wild grapes and even gunpowder. I am also a regular contributor to The New York Times, a graphic designer and the author of several books. 

I have always loved the contrast you can get with ink between a fine detailed line and watery-washy effects, and the more I worked with ink, the more I wondered if it was possible to make my own ink. I started with the hulls of black walnuts (found in a park on my way to work) which make a beautiful dark brown ink. 

Photo Credit: Sian Richards

Tools of choice: I started with an interest in natural non-toxic materials that felt safe using in a house with kids. I love wild grape, buckthorn berries, horsetail ash, and sumac. But as I experimented, I broadened my pallet to include almost any material I can find on the streets of Toronto.

 My White Whale Ingredient (is there some sort of material you wish you could capture in an ink?): I am still working on an ink I call lightning in a bottle which would be an electrified ink. Pure carbon is a great conductor of electricity, as is water, but I have yet to make an ink that has some of the qualities of a lightning storm on a lake.

Tool I wish existed: I have a collaborator in Japan who makes me incredible ink making tools. Beaten copper that funnels dust into a little hole that acts almost like a pencil, flexible bamboo ink movers that make marks across the page like corduroy.

What do you wish people knew about ink making? It’s both easier and harder than it looks. With patience you can make colour from almost anything. Also, the fear of ink fading ends up stopping people from using natural inks, when in my mind, an ink that changes a bit is alive and way more interesting than the inert, but archival, ink you get from the art supply store

How does creating your own art materials inspire your work as an illustrator? In too many ways to count.

Do you find yourself creating inks that you want to use for your projects, or is your work starting to be inspired by what you’ve already made? I used some berries and bark and weird ingredients that felt "Twin-Peaks-like" for a recent online Twin Peaks glossary for The New York Times. I think I am becoming more subtle in my use of colours in my illustration too. The ink is often not as bright as commercial inks and you have to train your sensibilities to work with those subtleties.

How should artists use your ink? Combine, experiment and forget everything you know about ink. The ink should be used without preconceptions about what ink can and can’t do. Let it do its thing and watch the results. 

Something you wish someone had told you when you were first starting out: I really didn’t know what I was doing when I started out, which was great. I have no advice other than get in your sketchbook everyday.

Photo credit: Eamon MacMahon Website, etc. The best place to keep up with my experiments is to look at my Instagram, @torontoinkpany [unless otherwise noted, the photos in this post are from his Instagram]. I also have a book coming out Fall 2018 with Abrams in New York called MAKE INK.  

Editor’s Note: You may have noticed that I’ve recently been including interviews with experts-- people who may not be cartoonists or illustrators themselves, but who are intrinsic to these fields. So far, there is Bill Kartalopolous (the Editor of Best American Comics) and Karen Green (Curator of Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University). Jason emailed me a question, and having never met someone who makes ink before, I thought I’d interview him! This post is not sponsored. In fact, I run this blog entirely on my own dime. If you’d like to support future interviews, there is a Patreon and a Ko-Fi Tip Jar. 

I spent maybe a week and a bit thinking over this theme and came up with an idea I think is a bit unique, I’m going to use mushroom ink from the Inky Cap mushroom in my painting!

I’m really hoping the show goes well so I can meet people and start building a customer base/following because my dream is to make a living with my art and to publish my own books/comics.

So here as promised is my update on inkmaking from my dye stash this winter – and what a winter: over 100cm of snow so far. Nothing for it but to huddle over the dye pot and carry on making ink.

First, a little info on one of the modifiers ( or colour shifters) I used for varying the ink colours made so far with buckthorn, grape, walnut and roselle. One of the chief charms of these inks for me…

That there is the Ink Stone with a tiny bit of ink in the well at the far end that I ground. All. By. Myself. Having never made my own ink before, this was a process, that once I read about it (and watched a couple YouTube videos about it) I knew I wanted to attempt. You might want to stop reading now if you don't care or don't want to know more about the process.

Though some might say the act of grinding one's own ink is counter-intuitive, I find the exact opposite to be true. It allows one to slow down and contemplate the act as a new part of process, and to just enjoy a new creation experience. I am creating one of the tools required to make my art, in a word: neat!