pigment hunter

if you follow me on instagram you probably know that i have been experimenting with making natural inks. i am very stingy with my time, and as a result i can be very reluctant to pick up new hobbies. but natural ink making piqued my interest on social media, and then my best friend and daily walking companion bought a book on the topic not knowing i had become curious about it (in that way that best friends often do). so together, we did a little experimenting. after all, it is a perfect fit with the foraging i do for STILL, i justified to myself. well, that was one month ago. and now my house is littered with natural ink marked pages. and at my sons request, we have started dying clothes as well. it a fairly involved process of simmering and filtering and reducing to make the inks. you could pretty much sum it up  by saying that september disappeared and all i have to show for it is a dozen 4 ounce jars of murky inks. that was all a long way of saying that i am now looking for possible pigments everywhere. nothing is sacred. if i can crush it, simmer it, and filter, it is in my cross hairs.

sumac leaves in fall