Making ink in advance

It takes time to grind ink, even with machines. I read somewhere that ink can be kept in the refrigerator to prevent it from going bad, and there are people who grind ink, keep it in the refrigerator, and slowly use that ink over time. It is also useful when a lot of ink is needed (such as when making large works) as it allows you to prepare the required amount of ink in advance.

 

So I  spent two days running one of my ink grinding machines to create this jar of ink. To further slow down the ink from going bad, I added a small amount of liquid animal glue as the ones sold in bottles include preservatives.

After a few days in the refrigerator, the liquid ink turned into something like jam and jelly.

Using a hot water bath, I heated up the "jelly/jam" and it turned back into liquid.

I guess this proves that it is possible to make ink in advance, keep it in the refrigerator, and then use that ink at a later date. That small amount of liquid animal glue also helped to extend the "life" of the ink, as after heating it back into liquid state and leaving it for a few days, the ink has not gone bad yet. I will probably be using this method to create a good quantity of ink for next year's exhibition practice.

A bit more about the process.

For creating the ink "jelly/jam", the process itself was to grind ink in batches, with each batch using 40ml of water and grinding ink for 2 hours. Then, I poured the thick ink into a jar, which I then stored in the refrigerator. (For the final batch, I used 20ml of water with 20ml of liquid animal glue instead of 40ml of water.)

As for using the ink, I used a plastic spoon to scope the "jelly/jam" into a small metal bowl. Then, I placed that metal bowl into a pot of hot water, and stirred the "jelly/jam" until it melted into a liquid. This is thick ink, and so I then further watered it down to get the concentration that I needed.