Wednesday, April 24, 2013

CJ Ink and Wash - Testing on Stillman & Birn Alpha

This one I worked a little at a time over the last couple of days.

Objective was to sketch each cork with pen and ink and immediately take a soft Kolinsky round with plain water and brush over the ink..............both water soluble and water proof ink.

What I found working this little experiment is that even water proof ink can wash out a little......at least proven on this paper if ink hasn't settled yet into the fiber of the paper.  Chances are had I waited for several minutes, the water proof ink sample might not have washed out at all.

Each illustration is about 2 inches high.

At first glance, it's easy to see how wild the Rotring pen and ink washes out.  I even tried using just a damp brush rather than wet.  It was hard to control on this scale.  I've done other larger sketches in the past managing to somewhat keep the ink from going wild like it did here.

The Lamy with it's original blue ink cartridge went wild too when a damp brush was used.  However, it was easier to control than the Rotring.

The Dip Pen and #41 Brown and Stabilo Green washed out beautifully even with the brush loaded with a bit more water than I used with the Rotring or Lamy.  I really like how the Stabilo water soluble pens perform.

The Hero and the Noodler's Flex with Lexington Ink both ended up with a bit of shading when the wet brush was applied.  Had I allowed that ink to really settle into the paper, it might not have done so.

Same with the Platinum Carbon and it's original black cartridge.

The Micron is what definitely surprised me.  Although faint........it still washed out and I made sure my water and brush were clean before brushing over the ink.  I tried to capture with the scan and enlarging.  Not sure if you can see the faint shading with the illustration but it's there.






2 comments:

Melody said...

Looks like a sea of happy dolphins leaping about the page!! A great experiment, and fun to look at too!

Susan Bronsak said...

Thank you Melody :-))