I participated in a wonderful natural ink-making workshop during the week. (Presented by artist Kate Temple and hosted by Cample Line). Thanks for the heads-up Sharon! I gathered a wee (poo) bag of things to use to make ink (berries/ bark/ vegetation etc) but have yet to apply the process… Watch this space.
Mugshot
Opportunely the very next day, and following my success of making Shaggy Inkcap ink last year, Malcolm returned home with a handful of Coprinus Comatus (Shaggy Inkcaps)! They had all been either broken or knocked over. He put them in a similarly broken mug on the kitchen worktop.
As explained in my previous blog, Shaggy Inkcaps ‘deliquesce’ – a wonderful word for ‘becoming liquid’. The gills change colour from white to black and they quickly start to decompose and drip… This is the ink I collected and used in a couple of fungi drawings last year.
On having written about the speed of the process last time, one might have thought one would have been prepared for what met us in the kitchen the following morning…
Oh yes! What a mess!!
I’d have loved to take a stop-motion video of the drippage! Maybe next year.
Spore Print
On moving the mug into the sink, I noticed, to my delight, that the Inkcaps had left a (black) spore print on the worktop! (How I wish I’d put down some paper!)
I’d presumed last year that the mushrooms spread their spores through the deliquescing process – but I was perhaps proven partially wrong! Intrigued as to the purpose of the liquification, I have now read that it does indeed help the dispersal of the spores. The elongated form of the fungi isn’t favourable in unaided spore dispersal.
On returning to their favoured spot, we found lots more Coprinus comatus growing!
They are relatively common, and grow in disturbed soil, or by roadsides, or in lawns (my cousin has some in his lawn!).
I will spread the spores from the print onto my own ‘lawn’. I’d love a colony of Coprinus!
Very beautiful, and drawing me in to draw another!
A fascinating fungi, I’ll post any inky drawings in my Portfolio.
