Fairy Tales and Fungus Ink

Hi Everyone,

The theme over at Tag Tuesday this week is "Fairy Tales" - the perfect excuse to try out some very unusual ink.

Before I tell you the story of the Shaggy Ink Cap, here's a picture of my finished tag ...

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Last weekend, we found some Shaggy Ink Caps growing near to where we live ...

We ate the smaller ones for lunch, but the larger ones are not so good to eat. However, Wizard Google told me that they make very good drawing ink, so I kept one to see what would happen ...

Over the next few hours, just as Wizard Google had foreseen, the inky colour spread upwards and the fungus melted into a deep, dark pool ...

I scooped the somewhat pungent liquid into an airtight container, getting very messy in the process ...

Using a very fine brush dipped directly into the liquid, I made this little sketch ...

It was quite a challenge to use - and not recommended if you don't like mushrooms, because the smell was quite pervasive. It reminded me a bit of when you're soaking dried porcini mushrooms. I had to experiment quite a bit to get the hang of it - in some ways it's like using watercolours, or maybe it's Nature's Distress Inks!

As well as the sketch, I diluted the fungus ink with water as a wash to create a background for my tag and to cut my letters from ...

... and I tried it with a Tim Holtz Layering Stencil to make some tree bark for the background ...

... which turned out great ...

The finishing touch was to use some of the ink to colour a piece of cotton tape to tie through the top of my tag, and I was done.

I love how the whole thing ended up the colour of the original Shaggy Ink Cap ... it also still smells of fungus :o)

Pop over to Tag Tuesday to see all the other different interpretations of this theme, it's always an inspiration.

Thanks for visiting my blog today, see you again soon.

Annie xxx