The Natural INK Project
〰️
The Natural INK Project 〰️
A decade-long ink-making project that has grown into
The NATURAL Ink. Guide.
I have been exploring and experimenting in the alchemy of making colour with plants, earth and metals since 2016.
The slow, seasonal practice of gleaning and working with colour from the landscape has been a practice of survival and sense-making. Small acts of sensory plant connection to support a grounding, a widening of perspective, the regulation of an overcooked nervous system. In the following of the INKLINGS and the call to commune with the seasons, a greater, wider, deeper, truer connection to life has grown. In finding ways to cope with (for the most part undiagnosed) neurodivergence, health challenges and traumatic loss, a seeing through the veils of toxic systemic disregard for nature has flourished. Body//Land//Mind//Spirit.
I now find myself moving towards a more integrated coping-communing animist practice and am endlessly challenging myself to listen more deeply. To relate to the natural within myself and outside of myself with curiosity and compassion.
More ink:
Anna Lukala visiting the old ink studio in the Preseli Hills, Pembrokeshire. 2021
Check out INKLINGS on Substack for more writing about seasonal practice and colour.
The NATURAL INK. Project Story on Substack, written in 2023.
Would you like to learn how to make your own inks with found and foraged plants and metals?
✺
Are you curious about the practice of working with land-based colour?
Would you like to move away from working with toxic, synthetic and plastic-based art materials?
The NATURAL INK. Guide is everything I have learned about botanical ink making over the last 10 years brought together as a self-paced learning practice resource for artist, makers and nature lovers who wish to dive into the world of making colour from the places and plants around them.
The guide features:
A beautiful 151-page step-by-step, written resource full of all you need to explore each element of this slow, seasonal, and sustainable making practice, complete with an ecosystem of hyperlinks and inkspiration.
4 × 30+ minutes seasonal ink-making videos.
The Seasons and Cycles workbook: a companion in exploring your relationship to the seasons alongside the practical ink-making.
An ink-making starter kit posted to your door with all you need to begin (minus the plants and a pot.)
Access to seasonal NATURAL INK. gatherings held from time to time online.
