2016 Buckthorn with vinegar paint results

Here are the paint results from these buckthorn and vinegar recipes in 2016.

 

I was able to make a nice sap green from the buckthorn with white wine vinegar by adding a little potassium aluminum sulfate (alum).

Note that the 25% acidic vinegar and buckthorn produced a thick juice that required more thinning and would require more water and more gum Arabic to produce a smooth paint.

When I added alum to both buckthorn and vinegar recipe it resulted in green!  By itself, the results were less satisfying and not what I would call green but more blue gray.

Side note: I think the shininess on the first two swatches is the result of a little too much gum Arabic.

Buckthorn with vinegar, twice in 2016

In 2016 I tried twice more to get green for paint or dye/stain from buckthorn.

Bolognese MS De Tintis ad Tigendum Pellum (Merrifield 426)

Dyeing skins green with Buckthorn berries, ripe berries Experiment 3

I was excited to try dyeing some leather green using another recipe from one of Mary Merrifield's translated Original Treatises.  "Someday", I secretly dreamed, "Mistress Isabel Chamberlaine might make my wish a reality and take me as an apprentice.  I'll need a green belt!"  Spoiler alert... I was apprenticed at Birka!

Adrienne's Experiment steps:

Research

Collect materials

SAFETY FIRST... 

 Suit up with nitrile gloves, goggles over glasses and dust mask!

Back to the medieval inspiration for the dream for the need of a green belt...

Bolognese MS De Tintis ad Tigendum Pellum (Merrifield 558)

I wasn't sure what a medieval "boiler" was.  Not wanting to contaminate any of my food-grade cast iron pots, I used the same corning ware sauce pan as in Experiment 2.  I used another 100g of the ripe buckthorn berries from Shana's.  They had a few leafy bits but I wasn't willing to arduously pick that out and I didn't want to contaminate my berries by rinsing them.

Combining the ripe berries with the same quantity, by weight, of organic, unfiltered cider vinegar (Bragg brand) I continued to follow the instructions.  I put it on the simmer burner of my gas stove on low for fourty-one minutes.  When the berries and vinegar had "boiled a little" I took it off the heat.  I let it cool a bit then poured it into a washed, secured square of linen over a clean jar then squeezed the juice out into the sealable glass jar.

When I tried to paint it, the shinier 'outside' part of my leather just achieved a blueish gloss and the sueded part still blueish.  Maybe it's just because it's a modernly prepared piece of leather?  

Painting the first three experiments out on a small piece of leather, the only one that's green is Experiment 2.

I painted them out again onto what turned out to be chromium tanned moose leather six months later with pretty much the same results.

                                              Left 3/18/16                Right 9/15/15
                                         Experiment 1                   Experiments 3,2 and 1  
                                         Experiment 3
                                         Experiment 2

Tomorrow I'll try again on Vegetable tanned leather from Birka.