UV Reactive Mushroom Ink

Dyer's Polypore Mushroom (Phaeolus schweinitzii)

The Dyer's Polypore Mushroom is a prolific tree butt rot fungus that begins making an appearance mid to late summer in the Pacific Northwest.

It is a potent source of pigment which can be used as a dye, ink, or lake pigment.

These mushrooms are UV reactive when fresh and dried. The qualities transfer to textiles when dyed and to inks, but are lost in the lake pigment process.

So if you would like to create a UV-reactive drawing medium, ink is the way to go!

Ink Recipe:

• Gather young, fresh, dyer's polypore mushrooms. Dry mushrooms can be used if they were dried while still young and fresh. It is common to come across last year's fruiting bodies, which are dry, stiff, and rusty brown. These will not work for ink.

• Shred or crush the entire mushroom, add it to a pot, and just barely cover with water.

• Heat the pot to a low simmer but not boil. If you are working with a small amount of mushrooms, you may want to put them in a jar with water and place them in a water bath.

• Maintain heat for about 30 minutes to extract the color. Your liquid will shift to a golden yellow color.

• After 30 minutes, strain and filter your liquid.

• Stir in a small amount of alum (about 1/4 tsp for 100 mL of liquid). Excess alum will precipitate and form crystals at the bottom of your jar. It will look like little pieces of broken glass. You can simply strain your ink and rebottle to remove these.

• Adding the alum should shift the color of your ink from a dull yellow to a bright yellow.

• Optional: Add 1 tbsp of ink binder per 50 mL of ink.

• 

  Ink before (left) and after the addition of alum (right).

  Now check out your ink under a UV light!

  
  

  

  Dyer's Polypore Ink under UV light.