VEG INKS for ZINE
part 1: beetroot
In keeping with the sustainability theme, I got my hands dirty (or stained with beetroot juice at least) making ink out of natural ingredients.
A really effective technique was using cookie cutters to cut out raw beetroot shapes. Their natural flexibility is similar to rubber, being hard and soft.
This allowed them to be used as stamps, self-inking ones too!
I also tried to make abstract patterns, by repetition of simple shapes like small rectangles. I cut a piece of thin, paint brush-like beetroot and drew lines that mimicked a wood grain. I also tried scoring the beetroot with a knife, then using the ink that seeped out of the cuts to produce a grid-like pattern. These techniques could make decorative or informative pictures for my zine.
beetroot juice was trialled at many different stages of rawness/processed state. -raw -boiled for a short time -boiled for a long time -stick blended and strained
I found that whilst they all seemed vibrant and legible when wet, the stick blended and strained method produced the most concentrated ink. The other variants tend to soak through the paper and bleed more, as they contain more water. Although as I became more familiar with the medium the quality also improved, for example I learnt to write in a fast joined writing so that the juice will not gather in one place and soak through the paper.
Most of the handwriting was done using a chopstick dipped in the inks. A chopstick kind of represents using a wooden stick, as I didn't want to use 'artificially created' paint brushes. A chopstick provided a good amount of stiffness, making it easy to control. However the writing was too large for my liking, so I may have to use a paintbrush in the end after all.