The Herbarium of Medicinal Plants
This year’s Inktober is a bit of a special collaboration.
For a lot of artists across the globe, October is a month of extremes. Between sacrifice, late nights, desperation, creation and satisfaction you can find Inktober. Inktober is an art challenge started by Jake Parker on Instagram in 2009. The challenge is pretty straight forward: ink a drawing every day for the entire month of October. It’s become a bit of a phenomenon and all the artists who participate share a sort of common bond, knowing full well the challenges of keeping an art practice every day while juggling work, social interaction, life overall and, you know, sleep.
Since 2018 I have participated in Inktober (although I only completed it once). But I’ve kind of enjoyed giving myself the challenge and, as years go by, have loosened the rules I impose on myself over completing it religiously.
Some past Inktobers: about female mythological creatures, flowers, and musical instruments of the world
This year I’ve decided to team up with my sister, Helena Leonardo, aka The Herbal Journal, to create a Herbarium of Medicinal Plants.
Helena has been interested in the power of nature and the medicine we can extract from plants for a few years now. I’ve seen her interest and knowledge grow, and have been an apprentice to some of her wisdom.
As for me, I take great inspiration in Mama Gaia and her generous creations, and nature is a prevalent theme in my illustration, either in the background or as the main subject.
Which led me to challenge my sister to collaborate with me on this project, and thus making her a victim in my masochistic art endeavours. She was pretty happy to do so too.
The project is simple: Helena makes a list of medicinal plants and herbs, the kind you can forage or find easily enough around you, writes a little introduction to their medicinal properties and how you can use them in your day to day life, and I illustrate them.
She’s still learning, as we all are, and we want to make it clear that we have created this list with the objective of sharing a common passion, through different mediums, with you. Plants are very powerful and, although we shouldn’t be scared to use them and make them part of our lives, we have to make informed decisions when doing so. So we REALLY HIGHLIGHT the importance of you seeking professional help before embarking in herbal adventures.
Now for the fun part:
Besides creating a series of illustrations I felt like challenging (torturing) myself a bit more. So instead of creating ink or digital illustrations, I am creating linocuts of each magical plant. Yes that means the whole shebang: sketching, carving, inking and printing each one.
Why?
Because ever since becoming a home printmakers and losing access to all the magical expensive facilities that a professional studio has to offer, I have found it slightly demotivating to create relief prints. Last year I had to use the floor as a base for my press, but I’ve just moved to a new house and started building my own home studio (we are very far from a finished space but I have an actual table for my press which is a ridiculous privilege). I’m still figuring out how to make these prints work and I’m still not getting the perfect results I’m seeking, but I am embracing mistakes and the human element of printmaking, which is what makes each print unique. So be ready to find imperfect prints, made with perfectly good intentions.
The series will include 21 carefully curated plant prints, 5 of each being sold. Some objects will be created in posteriority but we’ll keep those a secret for now.
If you want to keep up with this project in real time, follow it on my Instagram.
Me and Helena hope you enjoy this project, as always, that you learn to appreciate those little herbs around you and understand them a bit better, all wrapped up in the magic of printmaking.
