My favorite color to produce and make ink with is this one!

I started this batch in January after carrying the jar with the dried sediment and copper pieces with me for 2 yrs. What I find fascinating is that it’s like the “mother” I had for my kombucha that I would put in the fridge when I had made plenty. This is even easier to restart since I let it dry out.  It traveled from studio to storage and then to the new studio with no problems. I then simply added the salt and vinegar and voila, 3 months later I got this amazing color. I also find that leaving the pale sediment helps with the formation of the darker crystals I love so much.

The blues and turquoises are spectacular to watch form, I almost didn’t want to harvest them but then there is the ink! The sediment is actually really beautiful too. I have loads of the dried pigment so I am starting another batch and will leave it at the bottom to get more crystals. The copper pieces slowly deteriorate so I will need to add a few more this round.

Funny note: for years I called this copper oxide when in fact it is actually called verdigris.

I learned in a class I took last year that ” while some sources loosely refer to the oxidation process as producing copper oxide, technically, the green patina is a result of further chemical reactions”.

So verdigris it is!