A huge thanks to Eighth Day Farm for hosting our 3rd annual Black Friday Ink Fest!
It was a beautiful day for smashing, grinding, straining ink and playing with ink. Emily Christensen demonstrated traditional methods for making Iron Gall, Acorn Cap, Black Walnut and Vine Black inks, and participants were free to smash, grind, mix, and create their own inks. We experimented with alcohol and egg yolk bases for different applications (writing vs. printmaking) and worked with a variety of natural dying agents like pokeberry, turmeric, and indigo. Finely ground chalk diluted with gum arabic made a lovely white drawing ink, and a mixture of pokeberry, indigo, and caustic lye made for a dynamic color-changing ink that kept us busy for hours. Many thanks to our volunteers who foraged materials and kept an eye our boiling pots of joy.