FROST/BEAVER FULL MOON: charcoal + home

how to make artist willow charcoal and charcoal ink and paints

Fire Pit Charcoal Grinding on ‘Start By Not Knowing’ residency at Dove Studios 2019.

Greetings on this November FULL FROST MOON. Also called BEAVER MOON as this part of the year is reported to be an active time of dam building for our mostly nocturnal beaver friends, working in the moonlight.

A few mornings ago we had our first frost here in south Pembrokeshire and the smell of fire smoke on the cold air smells particularly sweet in the low temperatures. As we light the fires to warm ourselves, with Winter tapping its chilly fingers at the door, this INKLINGS is an exploration of making paint and ink from charcoal.

Below, I will guide you through this two-part process: Firstly, how to make artist charcoal (I use traditional Willow)*, and secondly the simple way to turn this into rich, beautiful black ink/paint.

*You can also gather some rougher pieces from a fire pit.

We’ll also be looking at the work of one of my favourite Wales-based artists David Nash and touching on an installation piece I made on the Starting By Not Knowing residency in 2019 where I worked with Chalk + Charcoal.

Let’s roll up our sleeves and start with the recipes…