General Categories > Open Flourish | General Discussion

GOUACHE v. Newer Inks

(1/2) > >>

Blotbot:
I take that gouache is the traditional way of making colored ink?  It has ground pigment in it?

I will now type heresy.  Those with delicate eyes should look away. 

Maybe there are better ways of introducing color, now that we have so many more solubles dyes?  I speak of the fountain pen world, and all the inks now available.    Noodler's in particular has an enormous range of colored inks, many "bulletproof", and thus good for envelopes.  Could these inks be diluted and augmented with a thickener, like gum arabic, to make them appropriate for dip pens?  Has someone tried this?

Ellen

Erica McPhee:
LOL Ellen! I can't look away!  ;D

I split this to stay on topic. I'd be interested in others' opinions. I personally do not like Noodler's ink. I think it makes a big mess and it stains my fingers and everything else I get near!

Gouache is really so versatile and comes in so many colors and are completely mixable. And I've never had a gouache bleed. So I don't stray too far from the path.  ;)

AndyT:
I'm still very much at the experimenting stage with gouache, but what strikes me is the opacity, not something you'll get with the general run of dye-based fountain pen inks.

Touching on Noodler's for a moment (always a good subject to liven up a sleepy fountain pen discussion ...) the range is so vast now and the various inks exhibit such a range of properties that it's impossible to generalise.  Most flow far too wet for dip pen use as supplied, but a few work very nicely out of the bottle, for pointed pen at least.  Golden Brown, for instance, is wonderful.

More generally, iron gall fountain pen inks usually seem to cooperate with dip nibs, so you get that lovely tight line quality along with the waterproofness for envelopes.  My current favourite is Ecclesiastical Stationery Supplies Registrars' Ink (just as well since I have a lot of it), but any of the others from Rohrer & Klingner, Diamine, Lamy etc should do well, with the possible exception of the old Montblanc Midnight Blue which was judged not as waterproof as it should have been, hence the recent reformulation.  The advantage of these over calligraphers' IG inks is that they're relatively benign as far as corrosion goes - I'm thinking here of Blots in particular which could probably dissolve a nib completely given a week or so.

Lori M:

--- Quote ---More generally, iron gall fountain pen inks usually seem to cooperate with dip nibs, so you get that lovely tight line quality along with the waterproofness for envelopes. My current favourite is Ecclesiastical Stationery Supplies Registrars' Ink
--- End quote ---

I've yet to try iron gall ink, although I know I should. (The corrosiveness has held me off.) But any ink with a name like "Ecclesiastical Stationery Supplies Registrars' Ink" I must look into!  :) Where do you get it?

schin:
I love gouache but also love iron gall and walnut ink for letter writing. Iron gall and walnut ink does corrode but it works so well with finer scripts like spencerian. I also like sumi ink for envelopes (if they ask for black ink) and it does provide a lovely black.. how ever it's very prone to water. I have some Noodlers ink but do not like them for dip pen.. they don't stay on paper, they stain the moment you rub it and god help you if you use pencil guidelines, because it will never rub off without rubbing away some of the ink, too.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page