Vistaril coneflower

​This print is part of an experiment I did turning psych meds into printmaking ink. I haven't perfected it, but am sharing my progress to inspire others,

I've been on psych meds since I was a child. They'll always be part of my life. My art deals with hope, resilience, and survival, so I thought it made sense to bring my psych meds into my work. I decided to try to capture vibrant purple of Vistaril that didn't work for me. Coneflowers, a species of echinacea, are native to the eastern US, where I have lived all my life. Echinacea has been used for thousands of years by Indigenous people to treat colds, pain, inflammation, and other ailments.

​Ink method
I started by scraping the coating off the anti-anxiety drug Vistaril. After about 2 1/2 hours of careful scraping and gently peeling the coating off an almost-full bottle, I had less than a gram.

I tried a few methods for combining the medication with ink base. Eventually I found that dissolving the scrapings in a drop of water and drop of Golden acrylic retarder made it possible to combine it with Speedball water-based extender. Mixing with a metal palette knife on a sheet of glass was helpful for combining everything, but the mixture still had some dots of undissolved shavings that appeared in the print, giving it texture. 

​The result rolled out like regular ink, but was quite sheer. More scrapings would yield a less sheer ink, but didn't want to use all my shavings at once. 
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Paper
​I handmade this paper from trimmed printmaking paper, misprints, and medical documents. It includes dots of scrap paper and botanicals. It is delicate and printing on it took some variation from my usual technique. I think a press would be great for this, as opposed to my hand rubbing.