Monday, July 30, 2012

Landscape Doodles

The page I did the last mini landscape on I finished off with various landscape elements like trees, rocks, etc.  The mini landscape looks like an odd ball on the page though considering the overall usage of Fr Ultramarine versus what went into the doodles.  It definitely stands out!

Doodles:

W&N - Fr Ultra, RS, BS
DS - Sap Grn, Phthalo Blue (green)

#8 Round and #2 Rigger

The Langton 140lb Cold

I think what I'm learning about the ink I use in the Noodler's Flex pen is that it does not dry very fast or sits on the surface of the paper that has any amount of sizing in it.  It bleeds when watercolor washes are applied.  One reason I went light with my washes just barely applying pressure with the brush.  I had to go back over some areas with the pen to emphasize some of the detail.

The ink I'm using is Noodler's Black and it claims it's bullet proof (water proof??)  I think it definitely depends on the paper.  Maybe if the ink sits for a few hours, it might not bleed.  I'll have to test that out.

2 comments:

larry said...

You may have gotten responses elsewhere to the Noodler's Black problem you're having but here goes.

Fountain pen people define "waterproof" more along the lines of 'if your check gets caught in the rain, the signature won't disappear.' It doesn't come close to the definition of 'if I wash over it with Hansa Yellow will my yellow go gray on me?

To the tech side, Noodler's waterproofiness (technical term) relies upon the ink interacting with cellulose. If the paper is heavily sized (like we watercolor types want), some of the ink won't touch/interact with the cellulose. If we use a 'wet' pen, the line thickness (not width) will have some ink on top of the line that doesn't touch cellulose. And, that ink will smear when hit with water.

This is why so many of us use Lexington Gray rather than other 'bulletproof' inks. It seems to handle washes better.

Cheers --- Larry

Susan Bronsak said...

Larry.......I do believe I've missed other responses on the topic of Noodler's Black. So much is mentioned about pens and inks that it can often be confusing not to mention a little overwhelming trying to digest it all.

Thank you for explaining about this. I've definitely questioned my understanding of what bullet proof truly meant. Your explanation definitely helps answer that!!