The Craft of Natural Ink

The discovery of ink occurred around 4,500 years ago in Egypt and China. In Egypt, scribes initially used reed pens with ink to write on papyrus scrolls. Around the same time, in ancient China, ink was used in calligraphy and brush painting. The exact processes of discovery are not documented, but it's likely that people noticed the permanent nature of certain pigments when mixed with a binder and began to experiment.

The traditional method of making ink varied by culture and period, but generally involved combining a pigment with a binder to ensure the pigment's adhesion to paper or other surfaces.

Pigment: The pigment provides the color. The most common pigment was carbon black, also known as lampblack, which gives a deep black color. It was obtained by collecting the soot produced by burning oil, fat, or resinous woods. In other cases, pigments were obtained from various minerals, plants, or even mollusks (like in the case of purple Tyrian ink in ancient Rome).

Binder: The binder (or vehicle) holds the pigment in suspension and allows it to adhere to the writing surface. One common binder was gum arabic, derived from the sap of acacia trees. This natural gum also helps the ink to dry by allowing water to evaporate. In other cases, animal glue or egg white was used as a binder.

Solvent: Water was often used as the solvent to achieve the right consistency.

-Ink mixing stitched from ‪@nickwoo2‬