Making ink

Fundamentally, making ink is a simple matter of releasing biochromes (plant chemicals) from a plant so they can be attached to other things instead. Generally, this is accomplished by cooking a plant in water, and then using that colourful water as ink.

We've become so disconnected from this basic process perhaps because it's too simple. We want things to be complicated. Curated. Perfect. And when it's not, when things are within easy reach, we freeze. Yes, you can be a magician and create colourful paintings from the water you used to cook cabbage. Yes, you can find plants outside and make colours for free. Yes, these can be artist-grade. (And, yes, there are some exceptions.)

We hope this site will inspire you, empower you, and excite you to make your own colours. We also hope you'll share it with others.

(Want to know who 'we' is? Click over to the About page. We've got that covered, too.)