Making Ink From Leaves... DIY Leaf Ink!
Hi, my name is Cory and I'm an artist that uses nature as a medium. A lot of times I like to DIY my own paper from grass or in this case leaves. Every time I make paper from plants, I'm left with a residual "tea" (not for consumption!) that I've always wanted to try and use for something else. Since in my last video I made paper out of leaves, I wanted to show you how I used the left over liquid and repurposed it to use as ink! I'm happy to say this DIY ink experiment was a success and is a great way to use fallen autumn leaves. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to use it for (besides drawing of course), but I'd like to use it in some creative ways in the future!
Chapters:
0:00 Intro and making "leaf tea"
1:09 Making leaf ink
3:05 Testing the ink
6:30 Final results and outro
Materials I used:
"Leaf tea" (boiled and strained leaves)
Gum Arabic (optional thickener)
Small stove (never boil plants inside!)
Small pot
Something to stir with (I use a disposable chopstick)
Mason jar (no plastic!)
Small jar for ink
Funnel
Strainer
My video on how I made leaf paper:
• Can Leaves Be Turned I...
Winsor & Newton Gum Arabic I used:
a.co/d/1KsqQNO
National Park Service ink recipe (I didn't follow this to a T, but it's helpful!):
www.nps.gov/articles/ink-acti...
The Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer, 1515:
www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
Artist Jay Matternes and the book I referenced:
www.jay-matternes.com/index.html
a.co/d/cQVOtRo
Artist Instagram:
/ corym.art
My website:
corymorrisonart.com/
Can we get a 6 month or year update on how the drawing appears and how well the ink stores?
Thank you, I would have asked this question if you hadn't. Oak gall ink is very acidic and the centre of all the O s and stuff drop out after a century or so, I imagine leaf ink might be similar.
I also want to know if it rots!?
@@Eckusit wouldn’t rot
The ink patrol have arrived 🚨🖋
I would also like an update please
You could also make ink from burning twigs then take the black charcoal pieces and after crushing them put a tiny amount of water.. depending on the water you put you can control the thickness and also the darkness of the ink.. (Also greetings from Greece!)
To make ink like that you need soot not charcoal. But close enough. You have to burn something fatty like actual fat, oil or pine wood and let the smoke "percipitate" on some cold surface and use that to make ink. The particle size must be really small and it has to be very pure carbon
@@Dordien you can make it from charcoal and add Gum Arabic to it
@@razwangazi but dosent it need to be milled to a micron like for gunpowder?
@@Dordien It does need a bit of grinding, though it doesn't _need_ to be the finest it can be to work, though of course, it helps.
@@tllgestalt1942 oh, okay. I'm not super knowledgeable cause I done it only a handful of times and mostly do walnut ink.
I have a couple if things to add. 1) You can use the high tannin containing "leaf tea" to tan leather. A cool experiment is to buy a dog's rawhide chew toy and soak it in the leaf tea for a couple weeks, the rawhide should turn into vegetable tanned leather. 2) The leaf ink is an acidic ink (due to the tannic acid) which can damage some papers over time, a trick to reduce the ph levels is add a bit of baking soda to the boil at the same time you add the gum arabic. 3) If you want a blacker ink (instead of a dark brown) you can mist some 000 fine steel wool with vinegar and let it rust through completely (you might have to mist it with vinegar more than once), add the powered rust to the ink and it instantly turns black. This needs to be done before you neutralise the tannic acid with baking soda however, so plan accordingly.
That's a really cool tip with the black oxide. You're probably aware but for anyone else that's the same concept for making your own black leather dye. Steel wool and vinegar makes an oxide solution that can be brushed onto already tanned leather which reacts instantly with the tannins to produce a deep black (or gray shades if you take single light passes). Same as the tannin ink here.
Thanks!
You guys rock. It is the confluence of art and science. Thank you so much for breaking down what are basically primitive skills. Sometimes I think that cavemen were smarter than we are today. They were definitely the original scientists.
Thank you for sharing!
Can i use gum from india
My only suggestion from my experience is to add some high proof alcohol to it because it will spoil in the bottle after a while. I made like 2 gallons of ink from black walnut husks 2 years ago and I still have some and it hasn't gone off yet. I added about 5% by volume of some cheap vodka (mostly because it was cheaper and easier to find than high concentration rubbing alcohol during covid's height)
Great idea
Can i use pure alcohol ( medic ) ?
@@yuliazni3389 I'm not positive, but I image so, yes. I've used 91% medical alcohol recently and it seems to be working fine so far.
That is not a bad idea.
@@yuliazni3389 Do you mean isopropl alcohol? Yeah, that'd do it! You only really use stuff like vodka if it's a product you're going to either be ingesting, or putting on your skin. This is just ink though, so use whatever alcohol you can that is pure enough. Isopropl is expensive, but it's good for SO many things!
Very cool! I don't usually comment on videos, but two things occurred to me that I just have to mention: 1) the ink is already a nice brown, but if you dissolve some steel wool in vinegar and add a few drops of that solution to the ink you might be able to change it into a deep black (black ink isn't super novel, but it's still cool chemistry). And 2) because the ink looks like it's made of many different leaves, I bet there are numerous different pigments in it. A simple chromatography experiment could separate out the components of the ink, but you could also apply different solvents near the ink on paper to create cool patterns and designs. Maybe this is already an art technique but this video seems like the beginning of several fun ideas!
Those are some super awesome suggestions, I'd love for him to do a video testing them out!
I'd never though I'd see a use for chromatography outside of a science exam. That's a brilliant idea.
Do you have an idea of how to make dry ink, like the one in ballpoint pens
@@VakoDemuro-wc3yw I'm not sure how to make that ink, but I'm pretty sure it's a completely different substance in a carrier that's not water-based, but don't quote me on that.
"Just a sketch" Proceeds to pull out a drawing that looks like it belongs in the Smithsonian natural history collection.
I have made a fair amount of ink from natural materials. Here are a couple tips. The type of leaves you use can effect the color and quality of the ink you get. You did not say what type you used so I am guessing you used a mix of different types. If you simmer but do not let the ink boil it is supposed to not spoil as quickly but I have never noticed a difference. You can add 3-4 whole cloves to your ink which will help keep it from molding, also adding some salt or vinegar can help "set" the ink and prevent fading. Hope these help and have fun making ink and keep posting your experiments.
when and roughly how much salt/vinegar should I use if I want to try your method? thanks in advance!
@@freeman4755 It does not take much I would say a tablespoon or two for a half gallon of ink. It acts as a Moliant to help set the ink/dye. A lot of inks are very close to dyes.
@@thegoblintrader thanks so much for your help!
@@freeman4755 Your welcome. If you have more questions just ask.
@@thegoblintrader Can I ask a question, how can I prevent the ink from exploding or rotting? Some say the bottle explodes
Hello, i am Photonik, a hobby chemist (and future chemist). Nice video ! I will try this with grass and a bit of sodium hydroxide to see if i also can get some ink. Great chanel and as always green. You diserve my sub !
I'd love to see how well this ink would work for making anthotypes! (You coat a page with your ink, then place either a transparent photo positive or some stencils / cutouts / objects on it, and put it in the sun to let the sun bleach the exposed areas)
Oooh I love this idea!!☺👍🏽.
@@wren5291 If you like that idea, have a look at Binh Danh's photosynthesis art.
Black ink is just carbon. As long as your main material is carbon, you're fine. The thing you have to be careful is that some material is acidic or alkaline, and the ink will eat through your paper, slowly but surely. If you're not sure about what pH your material is, just use burned ash of a candle. Adding water and Arabic gum, then you will get pH neutral ink.
Candles don't produce ash, just melted wax.
@@catholicarrowsmaybe they meant the soot?
@@marionettehone Thanks. I burn candles all the time but don't get any soot. I'm going to try making ink from all the burnt charcoals in the bottom of my barbecue, I bet that should work. Thanks for the comment 😀👍
@@catholicarrows To get soot, place something cold over the candle- something metal and smooth (so you can collect it later) preferably, but the glass top of some candles work too. Soot comes from the smoke of the flame, so whatever it touches will cover it with such.
And if your leaf ink is more acidic than you want, you can just neutralize it with some baking soda during the boil.
I think it would be good to add something for preservation. I made different shade inks from bluewood and added a very small amount clove oil to the whole pot. You don't want moldy ink or exploding bottles 😉
@@jeffhenderson2698 what about table salt?
Clove oil? Incredible. The more ya know.
There are also types of ink made from "galls" on trees, especially oak. Then there are so many plants that can be used for dyes of all different colors.
How do I learn about them?? I want to dye fabric and yarn with natural dyes but my research only got me Dyer's Woad which is illegal here because it's invasive. Someday I want to grow, spin, dye, weave, and sew a natural fiber from scratch. Maybe flax, cotton, wool, who knows, but I have no clue about dyes.
Buy and read Rita Adrosko, "Natural dyes and home dyeing". Dover Press edition is under 10$. It's a good book.
@Asafoetida Jones I have a degree in textile design. Part of my study was dying from plants, spinning, and weaving.
@@Susweca5569 I was replying to chaotickreg's question. But since I got such a huffy answer let me suggest reading "why is it always about you" by Sandy Hotchkiss 😄
There's a type of ink called iron gall ink. A gall is sort of like a tree cyst. It collects a lot of tannic acid from the tree. You can soak the crushed up galls in hot water, or boil them, to get a very similar brown liquid. You then soak something iron in it which darkens the liquid to a black or very dark brown. You might try soaking iron in your leaf tea, to see if it darkens.
You're dead right on this! Oak galls were used to both make ink from, and also as a cloth dye. When boiled in a cast iron pot, it made the gall even darker! Some people have been mentioning steel wool, and I guess that would work too. It's not quite the same thing, but it may be close enough. My history nerd knowledge rarely comes in useful...but I guess today's the day! :P
From what I learned, what makes the ink darker is a reaction between the iron sulfate and the tannic acid, so it will only works if the leaves he is using are rich in tannic acid.
1:18 I recently started brewing my own cider. I always drink my art 😂 Edit: Years ago, I studied Arabic Calligraphy and our teacher, an Egyptian gentleman, had this really cool special flask of brown ink, much like this one, he explained that he made it himself. I’ve never tried it myself, but his recipe called for toasted (almost burnt) rice grains. I assume they would be toasted gently, left to cool down, then crushed into a powder, mixed with water, filtered, and then mixed with gum arabic or some other thickening agent. He also taught us to make our own reeds with bamboo.
That's super cool! It's possible that the rice ink didn't even need any thickener, as rice is full of starch. You should give it a go sometime, just for shits and giggles! :D
I am going to do this with my son, he will love collecting leaves and using the ink to paint with. Just so happens to be winter here in NZ right now so there are leaves everywhere, perfect.
well, this one IS the content I was looking for: I'm pursuing a career in science, and I'm an amateur artist, so y'all can figure I use a lot of ink... Being so, I wanted to find a more sustainable alternative than just pens, hence I turned to writing/drawing with a fountain pen and india ink (as to get rid of having to waste pen carcasses). Soon I realised, I would generate a lot of waste by buying ink continuously. So this is probably my last piece towards a near-zero-emissions note-taking and drawing/painting 🙂 tysm, greetings from Chile!
I've been on your channel since a little moments and it's super inspirating, I feel I'll go outside and touch grass twice more than normal to make things like that. During the holy days I'll maybe see my aunt who loves natural work like that (for example she make her own detergent, or laundry idk how you say, out of ivy we found on a wall) so maybe I'll ask her if she's interested.
Not sure if someone already said that, but you can use the sap of cherry or plum trees as a substitute for gummy arabicum. I'm not sure how much you would need but it's probably more.
You can make ink from mushrooms too! I did it last spring with multiple kinds of mushrooms, and omg so interesting week of experimenting! (I painted multiple types of fabrics with them) 🍄
There is a fantastic variety of mushrooms called Ink Caps that break down and start oozing within an hour of picking them! Caught me off guard the 1st time I gathered them for a different type of project, but they ended up being an amazing addition to ink.
i wouldn't mind trying this i've actually wanted to start growing flowers to make colored inks so this is a great video for how i might approach that so thank you
I’d suggest putting a little vinegar and salt in the ink. The vinegar helps it stay colorfast and the salt helps it not develop molds.
This is so neat. I love your ideas, 100% subscribed.
Your videos flow so easily and you describe the process so effortlessly. Thank you for sharing your passion.
Cory, man love your work! Amazing!!!
Dude! I have to tell you how much I love how candid you are in this video ha ha ha! Growing up, as a kid I used to always look at the leaves in the bottom of our drained pool and watched how they turned to a thick oil. I always wondered if there were natural uses for it as I grew older, and here we are today! I am an artist too and seeing this made me get a huge smile on my face! You are such a natural in these videos, please, don’t ever stop making them! People deserve to see what you have to offer!
This makes me want to experiment with what I have in my yard. Great video!
Please make more of these ink making videos! There isn't a lot of videos where people make ink for these kinds of pens and their super interesting!
You can boil strips of rawhide down into a paste to make hide glue. Hide glue will act as a binder to any pigment
Do you think the rawhide dog chews would work?
@@ingridsnook7636 I love the way you think but sadly, probably not. The reason hide glue works is collagen. Dog chews are scraped treated and processed to ensure consistent quality. This process reduces collagen content. However: Since we aren’t trying to make carpentry glue here, beef bone glue would work. They used to use it for binding books. Clean the bones throughly to remove impurities and any fat that might be present then break them with a hammer. Do a pre-soak in cold water to leach anything out that might add undesirable color. For collagen extraction you want to go with a light simmer, not a boil (violent heat can destroy the compounds you’re extracting) 8-10 hours should be enough but the only safe indicator is pull a bone out and see if it breaks easily. Strain it through fine mesh then cook down into a paste over low heat. Camphor oil is used in Chinese ink sticks as a preservative (plus the smell is beautiful). In absence of that, tree sap from an evergreen can be used (pine, fur, spruce, cedar, juniper). The resulting paint is somewhat like a thin oil paint but I think it’s pretty cool to try something different. Best of luck to you. If you do make it, please come back and let me know what you think and if you found any improvements on the process ✌️🙂
Awesome! I have been doing a lot of research about natural dyes and inks. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Awesome work. not only was this an interesting experiment but your artistic skills are pretty awesome too. Loved the video
Super cool! I'm definitely giving this ago, thank you 🙂
That ink is very beautiful. It's asmr for my eyes. I love the color. I feel like there's a hint of dark green in it.
You're so creative. I love the fact that you made your own ink.
You are an awsome artist!!! i love making things /art out of nature....good job!!!!
Hello Cory! Thank you for the interesting experiment and idea!
I've made a bottle of maple leaf ink from last year's fallen leaves, just now reappearing with the melting snow. As a natural fungicide to prevent mold: cloves and clove powder, which also make the house smell great while the "tea" was being boiled down. 😋 Something else I did: I strained it several times through coffee filters add paper towels to get out any fine sediment. Trust me - there was a lot of it. Best wishes from Vermont 🍁
I really love the fur texture on the moose in that sketch.
You can make ink dye from black walnut shells too. You should use gloves too. It is used as a hair dye also... great video. Smelling it is great to prevent using moldy stuff. Gum Arabic is a great choice. Clove oil is a good antimold agent. I use it for making my watercolors.
I love when we use free stuff for fun, and you know thare is a plant called Roselle if you boil the petals you will have rose red color
I couldn’t agree more! I know walnut husks are a traditional source for dark inks, but never looked into red inks. I’ll have to research roselle!
Encontrei seu canal hoje e estou assistindo todos seus vídeos! Parabéns, estou adorando seu canal! 🥰🇧🇷
This is a great idea! very inspiring 😄
Some fountain pens use a cartridge. An empty cartridge could be refilled with your homemade ink by using a syringe. Doing so avoids the dipping step which can be messy, it can also avoid accidently knocking over the ink although as an artist you may have steadier hands making you less likely to knocking things over. Some plant pigments are fat soluble, others are water soluble. Letting mashed leaves steep in warm oil such as avocado or even canola will likely pick up these dark pigment and at the same time these anti-oxidants will prevent the oil from going rancid. This ink will be thicker but may be absorbed by the paper differently than the water based ink. In coffee you have both water and oil solved pigments the oil coming from the coffee bean.
Hi, cory! you popped out at the perfect moment! I also was curious to use material out of nature and also went for leaves. Tried to do some paper and ink but it never came out as good as yours anyway I'll try your recipes and your way of doing :) Thank you for sharing your art with us
Hi! Thanks so much for the comment and checking out what I do! Working with the nature around you is always a challenge because you never know how the material will react. It definitely takes patience and a lot of experimenting. But that’s kind of the cool part, investigating hands-on the nature in your own backyard and learning from it! Best of luck in your future explorations!
I’m out in my front yard collecting leads already .. thanks dude this is epic . I think il even get my kids involved I think we will all love it ..
You are amazing, your videos are so inspiring.
Awesome! Ive been feeling pretty uninspired art-wise lately, and i think ill have a lot of fun experementing with making my own papers and inks. Im planning to use some amaranth for inks, and maybe go foraging for some native plants to incorporate into paper. 😊
Interested to see how this ink holds up over time.
You changed my life! Thank you!!!
Nice! Keep up the great work! 💖
I love your channel so much man!
i made a pokeberry ink quite a few years back and kept it in the fridge it had a beautiful color :)
Your sweater looks warm and cozey
Oml! This is so good! We have this old tree in our street, and the leaves are falling. I'll go do this! Thank you for another video!!!
Thank you so much! Glad the video sparked some inspiration - you should definitely give it a try!
This was strangely very relaxing
I’m impressed.
Love what you do 😍 Keep it up 💪
This channel is therapy
Super Cool!! thanks ~ you're also an amazing artist~ thanks for sharing this
Looks real nice. Nice drawing too.
This is awesome!
tried this with predominantly maple leaves, came out a nice medium sepia-brown! works with brush or dip pen and i love it! been reading the comments and super want to try iron oak gall next
This is amazing.. could you try using avocado 🥑 they are said to give a beautiful red dye from the skin and stone.. you could have a variety of colours thank you for sharing
Thank you for giving us a smell of the tree leaf tea
dude now i wanna make my own inks! that's so cool
Lovely ❤ Really amazing
01:18 If that "ART DON'T DRINK!!" label is just for you as reminder/caution fine but if it's for other people, you should add a string around the neck so it's not open with a flick of a finger. I'm telling you this because I do similar stuff(bit more corrosive and hazardous) with similar bottles and labels yet someone tried to consume it even though there was a huge label on it. I started tying strings or those twisty wires around necks so it can't be opened without removing it first. And it works, when they can't open, they always inspect the bottle more and figure out there's something off.
Most excellent!!
Terrific drawing, by the way.
You realize what you've made before adding the gum Arabic, is called a tannin. I'm not surprised it ate through the plastic either. That's not just the heat, it's highly acidic and can melt certain substances and people use it to tan and color animal hides hence the name tannin. It can be made with leaves, wood, or bark from a tree. Hardwood tree types like oak which can work better than soft woods like pine, but tannin can still can be made from both. I commend you for your experimentation. Keep being awesome!😁👍
You got the main ingredient of iron-gall ink: tannin. I think if you add the right form of iron to your leaf tea, perhaps after some fermentation, it will become luxuriously dark. (but of non-archival quality) Wikipedia says that iron(II) sulfate was among the iron compounds used in the past. If instead of stewing the leaves, you burnt them beneath a cold brass bowl and collected the soot and added gum or gelatin, you'd get a much more permanent ink.
omg im so glad i found your page !!!
Such an talented person great work 👌🤍
Wow! Thanks so much! 😊
What a wonderful idea.thank you so much .ive used bark from wattle to dye clothes its a beautiful dark Brown smells like vicks bublegum didn't think about making ink with it . I've was using so e soil and charcoal for some drawings.ive been experimenting with watercolor for the first time since i was a kid .maybe ill give this a try .we have rooibos tea also leaves which make a beautiful orange maybe to mix colours from tea coffe and leaves .there are some great comments on your channel too. Appreciate you sharing .your art work came out beautifully.well done .
idk how to explain but your videos are so animal crossing core and i love it
Very very nice! Thank you!
Giving it a sniff was the first thing I thought of when you opened the bottle, too! ^.^'
this is amazing
I love the color
really interesting video! I always dreamed of creating my own inc. But I never ever found out how to.
Sweet. Ineed to try this.
Awesome!
It's typical that I find your channel now, when it's just the beginning of sumner in the UK and all the fallen leaves have gone haha😣. Nevertheless, I'm so glad I found your channel! I have so much to look forward to this autumn with all the dark red sycamore leaves and my neighbours shrub with such vibrant reds. Have you ever tried using fresh leaves to make green or yellow ink?
Hello! New to your channel.I am a fiber artist who fell in love with making paper!! And organic ,leaf and flower, patterns on re cycled paper..If you want better color on your apaer, add a teaspoon of alum. Powdered egg shells. Will change the color of most plants!! Blessings!!
Cool thing man. Should have done it on the leaf paper though. You can try adding other stuff to the ink as well, such as copper. Have copper nitrate and silver chlorate react to form silver nitrate and copper chlorate. Or take those copper sponges and douse them in an acid. It should turn into very fine copperoxide particles to be green. Iron 2 oxide for black and iron 3 oxide for red. (Just neutralise and stabilise the solution for either 2 or 3) Zinkoxide tends to be yellow so you could add that. To get your red green yellow and blacks. And then you can blend them.
I wanted to work on calligraphy with young children once. And as ink is very expensive and the kids could spoil too much of it by accident, I used some nut husk that I bought to dye wood and still had in my workshop. It was a bit too liquid but it did the job. I like your method better, though. The colour is much more intense. Thanks for sharing this.
Ty for sharing!
That's amazing
Tannins are awesome!
That is a great drawing
Not weird at all . Amazing
Wow!!! Thank you for showing the process! You don't have to apologize. Can you make grass ink next?
We can absolutely make some grass ink! Grass ink on grass paper?
It's amazing how you make black ink from yellow leaves
i had to access the CC for this video. it was fabulous but i had trouble hearing you. i have both my system volume up all the way and the youtube apps volume all the way up and i struggled .. it was little bit frustrating but most things in the world today are. thanks for helping me learn this technique i cant wait to try it :)
…For Isaac ❤ love this thanks for sharing!😊
“Im a little bit weird, have to give it a smell” hahahahaha love it
Trying to give you guys that smell-o-vision experience! 😂 ...but for real, so glad it didn't smell as bad as I thought it would.
Absolutely amazing definitely going to try this. If you ever find ink cap mushrooms (Coprinopsis atramentaria) They are also a natural black ink source. I’ve sadly not found any myself but just sharing knowledge
Love the comment about how close your eyes/head gets to the paper you get when your concentrating on a piece 😂
The sepia-like color is nice
EXCELLENCE ♥
Great!