Inside the Studio

Katrine on natural pigments

Katrine Hildebrandt-Hussey's shares her recent venture into creating her own natural dyes to add color to burned paper drawings. Using Jason Logan's Make Ink as a guide, she's begun working with pokeberry, black walnut, staghorn sumac, and acorn cap ink. These subtle, layered pigments amplify her laborious and meditative process of making.

A couple of months ago I had a studio visit with a friend who looked around at all the work and said, 'there's no color'. She was right, I hadn't used color in a while, other than some india ink work I had done two summers ago. About a year ago, I picked up a book, 'Make Ink' by Jason Logan, but I hadn't had the chance to really give it a try or explore the ink making process. After my friend's visit I was determined to bring color back into my work and I thought ink making seemed like a natural place for me to start.
Katrine Hildebrandt-Hussey