Andalucia

Its about time I get this Journal page going again. It been dormant for a year now since the World turned upside down..

I left the UK last Autumn to spend time with family in Andalucia, staying in a cabin in the mountains away from everything, except the pines, oaks, wild pigs and vultures.

We were out hiking every day in these stunning mountain valleys, with epic vistas at every step. The oaks here are cork oaks and harvested for their bark which is quickly becoming a popular sustainable fibre source. It didn’t take long to realise that these tress are littered with oak galls and abundantly available on my friend’s land where we were staying.

I’ve gathered a huge stash which I’m drying out for later use. The plan is to grind them to a powder and mix it with iron water to create an ink which I’ll use for drawing and painting.

One other thing that really caught my imagination here, is the local tallest mountain, the Sierra Bermeja. A local walking guide book tells me that the mountain gets in name for its beautiful pink hue. Apparently the reason for its pink colour, is its high iron content..Which leads me to wonder, if I were to grind some of the rock into my oak gall powder, would it make a sufficient fixative for an indellible ink…Or, if I soak the rocks, would there be enough mineral iron in the water for ink making? Soooo curious…..

I’ll let you how my experiments go…

If you’d like to try making indellible oak gall ink yourself, you can find oak gall powder on my online shop and the full ink-making recipe in my book, available here.