Create your own Botanical Ink with Flora Wallace

We recently worked closely with artist Flora Wallace, to create the beautiful artwork on our rebranded bottles from bespoke botanical inks, she handmade from natural elements which included elderberry, buttercup and avocado seed. 

In light of this and the wonderful response we have had to our new look, we asked Flora to share a botanical ink recipe with us, so you can create your own ink at home...

Rose Petal, Rust, Ragwort and Rainwater Ink

Ingredients:

40g of Red Rose Petals

10g of Ragwort

2 Teaspoons of turmeric powder

1 litre of rain water (or any tap water but bear in mind the PH of the water will effect the overall colour)

3 teaspoons of Alum

2 teaspoons of Gum Arabic

1 half of a lemon

Pinch of salt

Rusty iron object

2 drops Thyme oil/cloves/clove oil/natural preservatives.

Utensils:

Stainless steel pot/iron pot

Ceramic/glass bowl

Sieve

Muslin

Spoon

Paintbrush

Paper for testing

Method:

Measure out your rose petals and place them in the pan, then add the ragwort, turmeric, rusty object, salt and a litre of rain water.

Place on a low heat. Put a timer on and keep testing until you get to the desired shade of colour.

It's different with different ingredients but this simmered for 60 minutes.
Sieve the flowery liquid through the muslin. At this point you can decide to reduce it further to make the colour richer or keep it as it is.

Once it's at your desired depth of colour pour the liquid into a bowl and add the alum and lemon juice. Mix well making sure the alum has dissolved.

Then strain again through the muslin and filter through a coffee filter into a sterilised glass bottle.

Add your Gum Arabic and two drops of Thyme oil and shake to mix.

Thyme oil has antibacterial properties and helps prevent it from moulding. make sure not to use too much as it can make bubbles in your ink. You can also use clove oil or a natural preservative.

This recipe can be adapted to any flower petal you want to experiment with. #

The beauty of ink made from natural ingredients is that it can change and shift with time If you find yourself wanting to learn more than ups should purchase the book by a Toronto based artist, Jason Logan called 'MAKE INK'. It is filled with beautiful recipes and is very inspiring.

Read our Q&A with Flora Wallace here