Making Ink From Leaves... DIY Leaf Ink!

Hi, my name is Cory and I'm an artist that uses nature as a medium. A lot of times I like to DIY my own paper from grass or in this case leaves. Every time I make paper from plants, I'm left with a residual "tea" (not for consumption!) that I've always wanted to try and use for something else. Since in my last video I made paper out of leaves, I wanted to show you how I used the left over liquid and repurposed it to use as ink! I'm happy to say this DIY ink experiment was a success and is a great way to use fallen autumn leaves. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to use it for (besides drawing of course), but I'd like to use it in some creative ways in the future!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro and making "leaf tea"
1:09 Making leaf ink
3:05 Testing the ink
6:30 Final results and outro

Materials I used:
"Leaf tea" (boiled and strained leaves)
Gum Arabic (optional thickener)
Small stove (never boil plants inside!)
Small pot
Something to stir with (I use a disposable chopstick)
Mason jar (no plastic!)
Small jar for ink
Funnel
Strainer

My video on how I made leaf paper:

Winsor & Newton Gum Arabic I used:

National Park Service ink recipe (I didn't follow this to a T, but it's helpful!):

The Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer, 1515:

Artist Jay Matternes and the book I referenced:

Artist Instagram:

My website:

[brigidmccrea]

Can we get a 6 month or year update on how the drawing appears and how well the ink stores?

[Financial_Freedom_Tv_]

You could also make ink from burning twigs then take the black charcoal pieces and after crushing them put a tiny amount of water.. depending on the water you put you can control the thickness and also the darkness of the ink.. (Also greetings from Greece!)

[DH-xwjp]

I have a couple if things to add.

1) You can use the high tannin containing "leaf tea" to tan leather.
A cool experiment is to buy a dog's rawhide chew toy and soak it in the leaf tea for a couple weeks, the rawhide should turn into vegetable tanned leather.

2) The leaf ink is an acidic ink (due to the tannic acid) which can damage some papers over time, a trick to reduce the ph levels is add a bit of baking soda to the boil at the same time you add the gum arabic.

3) If you want a blacker ink (instead of a dark brown) you can mist some 000 fine steel wool with vinegar and let it rust through completely (you might have to mist it with vinegar more than once), add the powered rust to the ink and it instantly turns black. This needs to be done before you neutralise the tannic acid with baking soda however, so plan accordingly.

[Wanderer_of_Sol]

My only suggestion from my experience is to add some high proof alcohol to it because it will spoil in the bottle after a while. I made like 2 gallons of ink from black walnut husks 2 years ago and I still have some and it hasn't gone off yet. I added about 5% by volume of some cheap vodka (mostly because it was cheaper and easier to find than high concentration rubbing alcohol during covid's height)

[trevorcross]

Very cool! I don't usually comment on videos, but two things occurred to me that I just have to mention: 1) the ink is already a nice brown, but if you dissolve some steel wool in vinegar and add a few drops of that solution to the ink you might be able to change it into a deep black (black ink isn't super novel, but it's still cool chemistry). And 2) because the ink looks like it's made of many different leaves, I bet there are numerous different pigments in it. A simple chromatography experiment could separate out the components of the ink, but you could also apply different solvents near the ink on paper to create cool patterns and designs. Maybe this is already an art technique but this video seems like the beginning of several fun ideas!

[alyssavon]

"Just a sketch"
Proceeds to pull out a drawing that looks like it belongs in the Smithsonian natural history collection.

[thegoblintrader]

I have made a fair amount of ink from natural materials. Here are a couple tips. The type of leaves you use can effect the color and quality of the ink you get. You did not say what type you used so I am guessing you used a mix of different types. If you simmer but do not let the ink boil it is supposed to not spoil as quickly but I have never noticed a difference. You can add 3-4 whole cloves to your ink which will help keep it from molding, also adding some salt or vinegar can help "set" the ink and prevent fading. Hope these help and have fun making ink and keep posting your experiments.

[brandonmack]

I'd love to see how well this ink would work for making anthotypes!
(You coat a page with your ink, then place either a transparent photo positive or some stencils / cutouts / objects on it, and put it in the sun to let the sun bleach the exposed areas)

[nathaliedrinkstea]

I think it would be good to add something for preservation. I made different shade inks from bluewood and added a very small amount clove oil to the whole pot. You don't want moldy ink or exploding bottles 😉

[photonik-luminescence]

Hello, i am Photonik, a hobby chemist (and future chemist). Nice video ! I will try this with grass and a bit of sodium hydroxide to see if i also can get some ink. Great chanel and as always green. You diserve my sub !

[marysmithmarysmith]

I am going to do this with my son, he will love collecting leaves and using the ink to paint with. Just so happens to be winter here in NZ right now so there are leaves everywhere, perfect.

[cricketcricket]

After pulling the outer green layer from wild walnuts, I boil the nut shell, nut and all. It makes beautiful ink. Of course I leave the stored ink with the nuts in a big jar. I left it in my garage for a year. I use it for calligraphy, and this was 5 years ago. It's still in my garage.

[andrejohnson]

1:18 I recently started brewing my own cider. I always drink my art 😂

Edit: Years ago, I studied Arabic Calligraphy and our teacher, an Egyptian gentleman, had this really cool special flask of brown ink, much like this one, he explained that he made it himself. I’ve never tried it myself, but his recipe called for toasted (almost burnt) rice grains. I assume they would be toasted gently, left to cool down, then crushed into a powder, mixed with water, filtered, and then mixed with gum arabic or some other thickening agent. He also taught us to make our own reeds with bamboo.

[shawnpgorman]

There's a type of ink called iron gall ink. A gall is sort of like a tree cyst. It collects a lot of tannic acid from the tree. You can soak the crushed up galls in hot water, or boil them, to get a very similar brown liquid. You then soak something iron in it which darkens the liquid to a black or very dark brown. You might try soaking iron in your leaf tea, to see if it darkens.

[HorribleGamingFun]

i wouldn't mind trying this
i've actually wanted to start growing flowers to make colored inks so this is a great video for how i might approach that so thank you

[FireFox]

I love the green brown color that ink has.

[El_pouleto]

I've been on your channel since a little moments and it's super inspirating, I feel I'll go outside and touch grass twice more than normal to make things like that. During the holy days I'll maybe see my aunt who loves natural work like that (for example she make her own detergent, or laundry idk how you say, out of ivy we found on a wall) so maybe I'll ask her if she's interested.

[kevinbihari]

Cool thing man.
Should have done it on the leaf paper though.
You can try adding other stuff to the ink as well, such as copper.

Have copper nitrate and silver chlorate react to form silver nitrate and copper chlorate. Or take those copper sponges and douse them in an acid. It should turn into very fine copperoxide particles to be green.
Iron 2 oxide for black and iron 3 oxide for red. (Just neutralise and stabilise the solution for either 2 or 3)
Zinkoxide tends to be yellow so you could add that. To get your red green yellow and blacks.
And then you can blend them.

[theLASTdangerboy]

Dude! I have to tell you how much I love how candid you are in this video ha ha ha! Growing up, as a kid I used to always look at the leaves in the bottom of our drained pool and watched how they turned to a thick oil. I always wondered if there were natural uses for it as I grew older, and here we are today! I am an artist too and seeing this made me get a huge smile on my face! You are such a natural in these videos, please, don’t ever stop making them! People deserve to see what you have to offer!

[valentinpenadonaire]

well, this one IS the content I was looking for: I'm pursuing a career in science, and I'm an amateur artist, so y'all can figure I use a lot of ink... Being so, I wanted to find a more sustainable alternative than just pens, hence I turned to writing/drawing with a fountain pen and india ink (as to get rid of having to waste pen carcasses). Soon I realised, I would generate a lot of waste by buying ink continuously. So this is probably my last piece towards a near-zero-emissions note-taking and drawing/painting 🙂

tysm, greetings from Chile!