Bronwyn Rodden #25 - Journey to Ink

Wattle inks in my studio

I was looking at the intensely blue flowers of Commelina, a native creeper sometimes confused with a weed, and pressed the petals between my fingers. To my surprise an intense colour stained my skin and I immediately began to experiment with materials from my garden. As a committed environmentalist, I don’t take materials from the wild, which is in any case illegal. But I am lucky to have space for a garden and have been able to find all I need there to make inks I call Nature Inks. I’ve read much about making dyes from plant materials and sometimes have been able to come up with a range of colours from one flower. These are the shades I prepared from wattle flowers and leaves from my garden. Wattle inks are the strongest I've found so far. I continue to experiment and work on the intensity and lightfastness of my inks, which is always an issue with natural materials. Here is my tribute to Klee and Rothko in wattle inks!