Gold from Newton's apple tree: historical recipes for natural inks, paints & dyes

Abstract

"Flowering currant, ivy, Portuguese laurel, and woad might all have grown in a medieval garden, but it would have taken special expertise to extract and create rich blue and purple pigments from them. Humans have been extracting dyes and inks from natural materials for millennia, and the practice was well established during the medieval era, recorded in manuscripts that survive today. Gold from Newton's Apple Tree brings together recipes for making natural colors according to season, method, and ingredients. In this unique book, Nabil Ali shares his own accessible adaptations for preparing recipes from a range of plants, including coneflower, crocus, greater celandine, myrrh, and turmeric, all rooted in medieval craft traditions. Along the way, he provides an engaging and informative natural history of the plants used, alongside the broad spectrum of marvelous colors they produce."-- Provided by publisher.