After researching the necessary elements for the desired color palette, the process of exploring and foraging for the raw ingredients begins. Natural resources such as berries, nuts, seeds, pine cones, flowers and spices serve as the color base for each ink recipe.
Meet the Artist
Megan graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC. After a few years of in house design jobs and agency life, she set out to find something more fulfilling. After a visit to the Heritage Press Museum in Lancaster, PA, and a lot of volunteer hours paired with classes up and down the east coast, she began Typothecary Letterpress in 2011 to satisfy her hands-on, creative desires. In 2019 while at a letterpress conference, she stumbled upon an ink making book, paired it with her love of the outdoors and started making inks from household products and a variety of plants. Her background in design contributes to the carefully planned compositions while the chemical nature of the inks provides some beautiful surprises. She is always adding new colors to her palette which sparks new ideas and leads her in various directions with her imagery.
Each of the inks utilized in the creation of these paintings was personally created from scratch and incorporates locally foraged ingredients. After researching the necessary elements for the desired color palette, the process of exploring and foraging for the raw ingredients begins. Seasonally available natural resources such as berries, nuts, seeds, burnt sticks, pine cones, flowers and spices typically serve as the base of each ink recipe. Once these items have been sourced, it's off to the kitchen where the cooking, mashing, mixing, straining, filtering, shaking, waiting, and then grinding and cooking some more is done. Some of the inks use a combination of natural elements as well as some simple household items to produce the liquid ink, enabling it to be applied to the paper with brushes. As the inks are created fresh and contain only natural preservatives, some of them have shown, over time, to alter in appearance when exposed to air and/or light. As some of the raw ingredients are naturally more acidic it is possible that they could eventually break down the paper. All of these conditions are part of the ongoing exploration of the ink-making techniques and are considered to be equally essential to creating each unique “living” piece of art.
