Water Solube Ink and Stillman & Birn Epsilon Series

This is playing with water soluble ink with watercolor added after the ink wash has dried.

Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook

Pilot Prera with Namiki black water soluble ink

#8 Round and 3/8" Angular Flat

There's just something intriguing about using water soluble ink and I love how it behaves on this paper.

These inks offer a challenge particularly when one goes to add a watercolor wash.  One has to take care in how much water is in the brush and how fluid the watercolor is when applying to inks that bleed..........to especially avoid total contamination or muddying of the watercolor.

What I find works best for me is pulling the ink first with damp brush and allowing that to dry.  What you will have is a black ink drawing with gray wash tones that have been pulled with the damp brush.  The washed out tones do not lift as easily mixing with the watercolor as untouched ink lines will.

And I often find an angular flat works well as it doesn't hold the amount of moisture a round does.  One feels in better control of the bleed spread.

Then using a fairly dry brush of watercolor carefully and gently lay down color so not to make untouched ink bleed and take over the color. 

One will undoubtedly come across an area of ink that had not been washed out that will bleed into the watercolor if the brush hits it.  The lighter the watercolor pigment, the more noticeable. 

The ink bleed can be used to one's advantage as it can create shadow and tone variation within the watercolor.  Just takes playing and practice to find what works best.  And, this technique doesn't always work out to my liking but now and then I get lucky with results I actually like.