COPPER INK

FINDING COPPER

Finding copper is easier than you might think: look for old pennies, bits of copper wire in your basement, copper sponges, or head to your local recycling plant or manufacturing plant and ask for copper scraps.

Copper scrap from local manufacturing plant

MATERIALS

You’ll need:

• Glass container

• 1/4 to 1/2 cup copper

• 1 cup of white vinegar (then adding more as needed)

• 1 TBSP salt

• Spoon (that you will only use to make this ink) or stick for stirring

• Rubber gloves

MAKING THE INK

1. In a large glass jar with a tight fitting lid, put your copper pieces inside and add white vinegar until the pieces are submerged.

2. Add salt. Shake gently to combine or stir.

3. Leave mixture outside, in a well ventilated area, and away from pets and children.

4. Each day, stir the mixture, and add more vinegar if there has been any evaporation so that the copper pieces stay covered. This could take anywhere from 2 weeks to 5 weeks, depending on your copper specimen.

5. Once you’ve reached your desired color, strain or fish out your copper piece using rubber gloves. You may end up with anywhere from a forest green to a neon blue—it’s the surprise that’s so exciting about this ink!

6. Cap your mixture, and keep your finished ink capped when possible. Shake each time before use, or play around with the layers that will naturally separate (darker, transparent color on top and a thicker, milkier color that gathers on the bottom).

This is a different batch of copper oxide ink—foraged off of a different piece of copper, which became a totally different color!

EXPERIMENTING

Mordant tests with copper ink

Adding salt may be one of the more exciting mordants to experiment with. Acting like a catalyst for oxidizing faster, copper ink will form crystals when combined with salt (on the page, or stirred until dissolved on a palette).

I suggest marking a brush or set of brushes just for copper usage. Because it’s a metal, it may effect other natural inks in your set if mixed together. It also will destroy any pen nib. A fair warning.

UP CLOSE & UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Copper ink, when let dry in a small puddle from a dropper or paint brush, creates a sort of “topographical effect.” Take a look at the photos below taken through a microscope of the test piece below—

Doesn’t it look otherworldly?