Katherine recommended I post experiments I made with the flow of inks in water after seeing this post on our Watermarks site. I've been working on a sketchbook series of watercolor and ink and discovered some interesting things. For this experiment, I tilted the board about 30 degrees and swiped a stripe of water with a fully loaded 1" flat. I'm using Fabriano Soft Press paper as I do for my sketches.
From left to right, here are the inks tested:
1) Pre-mixed Yahutomo Sumi ink
2) Parker Quink
3) Higgins Eternal
4) Noodler's Golden Brown
5) Waterman Havana Ink
6) Dr. Ph Martin Bombay India Ink
7) Daler Rowney Liquid Acrylic
8) Windsor Newton Ink
I had better keep my day job as it supports my media "habit". These were just the inks I had on hand. I've since bought a few others but they are really liquid acrylics and are not relevant.
As you can see, the Dr. Martin Bombay Ink has the absolute best traveling capacity. I'm guessing that this is due to the fineness of the particle load in the ink. The acrylic "inks" as well as the pre mixed Sumi moved very little.
I fooled around with the amount of water on the paper and discovered that the ink needs just the right amount of moisture for maximum travel. Too much water and it's movement is inhibited; same goes for too little water. I liked the movement best when he paper was on its way to dry and just a bit shiny.
What I found interesting too is the color separation that occurred. The Quink Ink sediment sifts out to be blue when really dilute. And the Noodler's brown ink had a very strong undertone of bright yellow.
I'm going to try adding a very small, diluted amount of Bombay Ink to watercolors to see if that assists in granulating the colors.
Des Plains River Iced over
We've been in the deep freeze recently and this is what the Des Plains River looked like yesterday. It has not been sub-zero long enough for anyone to walk on the ice and I doubt I'd even try no matter how cold.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Ink Flow Comparisons
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5 comments:
Wow - fascinating results Lindsay. So useful to know too - I am now going to add this straight away into my information site about pen and ink!
I was watching the Stephen Fry programme earlier this evening where he visits all the states in the USA. This evening was about the Mississippi and he went all the way from New Orleans up to the source in Minnesota - and he was commenting how much colder it got from Chicago (a slight detour!) through Wisconsin and up to Minnesota. So if you're in deep freeze goodness only knows what they people in those states are experiencing.
Thanks for putting these on-- so interesting to see how the different inks behave.
annie
Thanks Katherine and Annie :)
Not only does it get much colder in Minnesota, but they have unbelievable amounts of snow. That part of the country has mastered the art of stoic endurance.
Thanks for sharing this, Lindsay. I have a friend here who does gorgeous still lifes with colored ink and the medium has always tempted me. It's fun to watch what you're doing with it.
Hum, Casey is this friend on line? I'd love to see that. Bombay has a whole line of colored India Ink and I'm tempted to try some others.
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