Make Ink

Imagine if the twigs, leaves, and bits of metal on the streets around you weren't waste but ingredients for a rich palette of unfolding color. Imagine that the oldest tool of communication—ink—could vibrate, grow crystals, or change color on the page.

This is the world that Toronto Ink Company founder Jason Logan invites readers to discover in Make Ink. Part art book and part how-to, Make Ink is a color journey that redefines our everyday understanding of ink, and, in the process, teaches us to reclaim a lost urban wilderness. It's a journey that emboldens readers to get their hands dirty foraging for color in woodlands, back alleys, and city parks; mixing pigments in the kitchen; and testing out their homemade colors on paper in the studio. Clear step-by-step (and color-by-color) recipes draw on medieval alchemy, domestic science, and ecological cookery.

Rebelling against the mass-produced ink of our industrial age, Logan's Totonto Ink Company makes small-batch inks that are sensitive to place and environment for fans and artists around the world. Featuring full-color artwork and handwritten notes from such collaborators as Dave Eggers, Margaret Atwood, and Marcel Dzama—as well as a conversation with international bestselling author Michael Ondaatje— Make Ink offers a new framework for thinking about the vital connection between ink, language, and art. It will change how you see and interact with the world around you.