For individual ingredients, there is nothing better than a good old-fashioned internet search. Still, it’s nice to have a library of reference texts. For a classic forager’s guide to identifying different tree species, I recommend Tree Finder: A Manual for Identification of Trees by Their Leaves by May Theilgaard Watts. For a travelogue-meets-historical perspective, you might start with Ted Bishop’s The Social Life of Ink. If you are a forager looking for color in nature, Jenny Dean’s Wild Color: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes is a great starting point. If you just love the stories that surround the world of color, Victoria Finlay’s Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox remains one of the best. The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair includes even more stories in a kind of visual dictionary form. For a guide to lichen-based color, see Lichen Dyes: The New Source Book by Karen Diadick Casselman. For a broader guide to natural color, see Sasha Duerr’s Natural Color and Kristine Vejar’s The Modern Natural Dyer.
Really there is nothing in this book that can’t be done in a small kitchen—with maybe a single trip to the art supply store for gum arabic. But as you get deeper into the traditions of inkmaking, you may find yourself looking for shops that sell more esoteric ingredients. My favorite two supply stores in Canada are: Maiwa, which focuses on natural dye methods and materials and includes a great selection of books, workshops, and information; and Kama Pigments, which is more of an artist’s raw materials source based in Montreal. In Asia, Pigment Tokyo has an incredible showroom and some incredible Eastern ink materials, including fifty-year-old, aged inksticks available online. Kremmer Pigments based in Germany and New York is probably the best resource in the world for art and inkmaking supplies and workshops. Sennelier is a great source in France for fine and historical artmaking supplies and makes, in my opinion, the best commercial painting inks.