I spent most of the day dyeing with indigo on yarn . . . and some silk. A long day! But, on the list of things to do was to decant the iron gall ink I have been making over the past week.
Success! It is a really beautiful ink! It flows well off the flex dip pen nib as well as the quill I cut a few days ago. I’ll blog a bit more about it later, as at the end of a long day, I’m really tired, but really content with both the dyeing and the ink.
Today is the final day for adding ingredients to the iron gall ink. I added 25g. of gum arabic to the ferrous gallate (new name for the oak gall / ferrous sulfate heptahydrate solution) to create the final product of ink. Until the gum arabic is added, the solution is really just a solution or a liquid. My gum arabic was in a powdered form, so I simply placed it on top of the liquid in the jar, and shook it a lot. Since adding it, I am continuing to shake it. The gum arabic to the left is in its most common form – hardened sap. It has a jewel-like quality, I think – a lot like amber – and besides using it in ink, it is edible and has many uses in the food industry.
Gum arabic, the hardened sap of the acacia tree, is used a binder in ink, controlling the ink’s viscosity – how the ink flows. It adds more control into the ink’s behavior, such as eliminating or lessening feathering, bleeding or cracking when use on paper or parchment. An element of luminosity or shine is another characteristic it imparts to ink.
In addition to controlling viscosity, gum arabic helps the ink to adhere to the paper. The water in the ink evaporates, and left behind is the colored portion of the ink; it is the gum arabic which acts as a glue to stick the ink’s pigment to the paper.
An ink – or watercolor paint or gouache – needs the gum arabic to give it the right consistency or body to flow easily, but not messily, from the pen or brush. Other pigmented inks may also crack, and the addition of the gum arabic helps prevent this; I don’t believe that iron gall inks suffer from cracking.
Soon enough, the ink and quill will be put to the test of actually using it! Stay tuned . . .
Early this morning, Josh and I went to the hardware store. We bought supplies for Thursday’s indigo dyeing adventure and a piece of steel wire to make a quill scraper, a tool used to scrape out the membranes inside the feather’s quill, which is where it attaches to the bird. Once home, Josh headed out to the garage, and within about 45 minutes produced a scraper, similar to the one found in yesterday’s quill cutting video with Mr. Ruud. All told, it measures about 8″ in length and is a dandy little item.
And then, a bit of housework – dusting! It’s gotta be done – a bit of lunch, a nap, and onto the magic of adding Ferrous Sulfate Heptahydrate to my slightly fermented jar of oak galls.
Ferrous Sulfate Heptahydrate was not hard to find. I bought it from Amazon and had it within a day or so. The jar is about 113 g. – I need 50 g. for the ink. Thus, I weighed it out.
From here, it was time to add it to the oak gall mix, which has been out in the sometimes-sun since Saturday. I shook is multiple times everyday.
And now – oh, this was so exciting and beautiful! – the addition of the Ferrous Sulfate Heptahydrate to the oak gall mixture!
And now, shaken up, the dark ink of the Iron Gall Ink!
And now, another 24 hours out in the sometimes-sun. Stay tuned for the addition of Gum Arabic (25 g) tomorrow!
While we wait for the ink to ferment, along with kimchi (more later!) and the current batch of beer, I have taken some quills to begin to re-learn how to cut them. What an adventure it has already proven to be.
To begin with, I bought a quarter pound of white turkey feathers from a local feather company. They are white, and what I was able to do was to look at the diameter and width of the quill part – not the feathers, as they are not important – but the thickness and length of the lower end of the feather, the part to create the nib of a quill pen.
Yesterday, I stuck the quills in a glass of water to soak overnight. I made sure there was enough water to cover the lower end of the quill up to where the first barbs begin. One feather had its tip intact, but the remaining four had been cut away or removed. According to varying sites, the end should be cut away prior to soaking. After soaking the quills, I attempted to do the following, in this order:
The quill nib was broader than I would have preferred, but the pen held up well despite all the flaws. The paper itself is very smooth, and having a hard finish, not especially absorbent. As a result of both the hard finish on the paper and the broad nib, it took a bit of time for the ink to dry. I tried script and printing using the quill turned to about 35-45 degrees to create a thick-thin element. Still, for my very first quill in ages and ages, I was pretty darned pleased with it!
Yesterday’s post was about oak gall ink (which I may also refer to as “iron gall ink”), how it is made, some historical information, and what not. Today I will tell you about what I did, accompanied by my fine photography!
The Receipt: Take 80 g. oak galls, pulverize into fine powder, and dissolve in 300 ml. of distilled water. Place into jar, seal, and set out in the sun for 3 days.
I weighed out 300 ml. water on my digital scale, followed by 80 g. of oak galls – which came to exactly 3 ounces! I put the galls into my non-used coffee mill, but the outside was so tough I took them out, placed them in a baggy, and took a 3 lb. hammer to them – well, Josh did the first honors of crushing the galls, and I immortalized him.
After the crushing in the baggy, the galls were placed in the coffee mill a second time and were pulverized into a powder.
Thence, they were transferred to a pint Ball jar, water added and powdered stirred in. I placed a thin layer of plastic wrap between the lid and contents, shook it up a bit, and took it outside to enjoy the benefits of the sun for the next three days.
Shaking will occur daily, as thought about, and on the 25th the ferrous sulfate heptahydrate will be added. Who knows if that step will work at all!
Note: To see the pictures larger, click on one in each group to work through a slide show.
