Ochre Glue Paint and Tannin Inks
An Online Demonstration With Caroline Ross
Wednesday 10th June 4-6pmBST
We will cover how to prepare surfaces, make and use a variety of home-made long-lasting or permanent natural inks, and ochre and mineral-based glue paints for use on all kinds of leather goods. Also covering how to make them last longer using waxes, gentle washing techniques and correct handling. This session is a perfect addition to those who love to thrift and up-cycle well-made vintage garments and bags as well as tanners looking for new ways to express themselves with their craft.
Important issues which can cause damage to leather, such as pH, salinity, UV and heat exposure will be covered and ways to avoid them will be shown. The inks used in this session will be vegan but the paints will be animal glue based.
Featured projects will include camouflage gloves, a variety of chamois, suede and buckskin bags, forest floor shoes and clothes, parchment and rawhide, vintage leather cases and more.
Including a pdf featuring simple recipes, links, books and artists. You are encouraged to bring any leather items you would like to decorate to the class so you can ask questions about appropriate materials and methods.
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Caroline Ross
Caroline Ross is an artist, writer and teacher living by the sea in Bournemouth. Her debut book ‘Found and Ground: A Practical Guide to Making your own Foraged Paints’ was published by Search Press in June 2023. She is writing the follow up about ancient and foraged drawing materials, ‘Drawn From the Wild’ to be published spring 2025. Using what nature provides and repurposing what humans discard are a large part of her practice. After the rooks have feasted on the riverbank, the empty mussel shells become paint palettes. The seasonally moulted flight feathers of local swans and geese become quill pens and brushes. Chalk dug out from their setts by badgers is left in piles in the woods, where she gathers it and take it home to make gouache. Caroline makes paints from foraged earth pigments from around the UK, and art tools and inks from natural, wild, and found materials such as oak galls, rusty nails, elderberries, bay leaves and cherry tree gum. The natural fluctuations of materials and the botanical ink stains or ochre paints forming prepared grounds on paper, all suggest forms with which she works.
