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| We have lots of walnuts |
I know, who ever heard of walnut ink? Until recently, I had never heard of it either. But when we brought home all those black walnuts, I got online and found out that our ancestors used to boil the walnuts (and lots of other roots, etc.) to create their own ink. Makes sense....it's not like they could drive the horse and buggy down to the local Office Depot and buy a bottle of ink. So I figured....how hard could it be? Again, more fits of giggles. Oh, ye of little faith....harumph!
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| They're just under the size of a tennis ball |
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So I swung by our church's thrift shop and found a great pot with a
colander insert that was pretty much perfect for the job and it only
cost me $5. Works for me!
I filled the pot with walnuts and covered them with water and brought the whole mess up to a low simmer. The water was a dark color within 10 minutes, but very diluted.
At this point I was wondering how long I should simmer the nuts to achieve the dark color I was looking for in ink.
Well, I cooked them for 8 hours that first day. Yes, I said that
first day! As they cooked, the husks became soft and I used a metal spoon to remove them from the walnut itself. By removing the hard walnuts, the dark husks were turning into mush, creating a darker and darker fluid and it was easier to stir the mess every half hour or so as I checked the pot to make sure the water had not boiled completely off.
I didn't even bother trying to open the walnuts that were removed from the pot. Don't you think they would have been mushy or something after being cooked for 8 hours? Besides, my focus was now on the ink I was trying to create.
Well, I let the walnut mush sit overnight in the pot with the heat turned off. And the next morning I turned the heat on again under the pot and gently simmered it for another 6 hours, checking it every hour or so to see how dark the liquid had become. I lined a fine strainer with 2 layers of cheesecloth and spooned the mush into the strainer. After letting it drain for a few minutes, I used the slotted spoon to push on the mess to get as much liquid out of it as possible.
And this is what resulted......2 cups of really dark brown ink! It really does work!
I also read online that in order to prevent mold forming you should store the ink in a jar with as little room for air as possible and add denatured alcohol to the ink, about 5% of the volume should do it.
Now it was time to test out the final product.
So I pulled out the dip pen and nibs I bought along with some watercolor paper.
They even came with a handy little tin to hold all the different sized nibs so they won't get lost or damaged.
OHMYGOSH! It worked! Now I just have to learn how to draw.....ha ha.
I tried all 5 nibs out but found the two I preferred were the two on the left hand side of the page. The other three were much more difficult to manipulate and I kept getting blobs of ink on the page. Of course, it would help if I knew what I was doing, but I'll just keep trying to learn by trial and error. Imagine.....George Washington wrote all his papers with this kind of pen! I have a lot of practicing to do.
Having a ball,
Debbie
