2025 and later — gallo tannin

One of my favorite plant based processes in slow fashion & textile art is painting and print making. I work with a variation of a centuries old “oak gall ink” recipe that is made of oak galls and iron salts. This process starts with making an ink using iron salts, vinegar, and a thickener. The curing of ink requires two baths, one of which I use gallo tannins. This plant extract is from gall nuts or oak galls, which are fibrous growths on oak trees that the tree creates once a wasp has laid its eggs on a branch. The wasp later drills itself out of...