Struggling To Find A Waterproof Black For Watercolor Sketches

[camoandconcrete]

Hi all, like the title says, I can't seem to find a waterproof black that works in Stillman & Birn sketchbooks, or similar, that will actually stay on the page. So far, I have tried GvFC Carbon Black, Montblanc Permanent Black, a few different Noodler's Blacks, and Platinum Carbon Black. The GvFC used to work great, but lately the ink seems to have lost its permanent qualities and I'm not sure if it is because the bottle is a few years old.

 

The only thing that seems to work is leaving the sketches alone for several days and then coming back to add the watercolor. I don't like waiting that long so I have been using my Rapidographs with India ink.

 

Does anyone know of some other inks that will be waterproof within a few minutes of going on the page? Thanks

[aurore]

Well, yes, Koh-i-Noor Document Black is perfect and cheap... if you can get it. It costs from 1$/50ml to... whatever. I am willing to send you some if you cover the postage.

[ParramattaPaul]

Is this what you are currently using? https://www.dickblick.com/products/koh-i-noor-rapidograph-ultradraw-waterproof-ink/

[camoandconcrete]

Is this what you are currently using? https://www.dickblick.com/products/koh-i-noor-rapidograph-ultradraw-waterproof-ink/

Yes, in Rapidograph drafting pens, not my fountain pens. I have kind of giving up on using fountain pens for any kind of drawing where watercolor will be used.

[A Smug Dill]

I have never seen ink marks made with Platinum Carbon Black ink smear or get lifted, much less erased, by exposure to water for any length of time on any paper I've used; but then I've never used Stillman & Birn sketchbooks. The black lines are rock solid on Arttec Como Sketch Pad 210gsm paper, Canson Drawing 220 Pad 220gsm paper, Rhodia 80g/m² paper, even lab filter paper and kitchen paper towels, after all of 10–15 seconds, in my experience.

Edit: I just tested it, and I think I might understand what your issue with Platinum Carbon Black is now.

 

​The ink is waterproof, but the carbon particles can be rubbed off with friction, including from the bristles of a water brush pen, when the paper is (re-)wetted; that's mechanical erasure.

Edited September 11, 2020 by A Smug Dill

[AmandaW]

I mainly use Rohrer and Klinger Document Brown with watercolour - it doesn't lift and I find it dark enough to pass for black (and find the little bit of warmth pleasing for figure and landscape sketching). They do make a document black as well, but I haven't tried it.

 

I've used a couple of colours out of their SketchInk series of waterproof sketching inks and find they stay put too. I haven't tried Lotte (black) so can't vouch for that either.

 

Hopefully you can find reviews of their blacks specifically to see if they might suit you.

Edited September 10, 2020 by AmandaW

[wallylynn]

Sorry you had to find out the hard way. Lots of inks leave an unbounded layer of ink that can be redissolved or moved. India ink has a water proof shellac binder which is why it's not suitable for fountain pens.

 

Maybe you'd be interested in a noodler's Boston safety pen. There's also a set of water proof ink for it (not for regular fountain pens, only the safety pen)

[txomsy]

One would expect Noodler's Bernanke Black to dry quick enough. And X-Feather to be about as good as it comes. But it is true that highly saturated inks may leave a part that is not paper bound and might smear. IG inks should not display this issue in principle, but YMMV.

 

A possible solution may be to dilute the ink so that you still get a black line but not so much pigment is laid down and thusly endure all pigment is paper bound. Finding the right ink proportion may take some experimenting with a small vial.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Noodler's Bad Green Gator is waterproof. Or at least my batch is. So waterproof I have to confine it to a single pen and clean it diligently, but it's fine for watercolor overlay.

[BaronWulfraed]

Heh... and here https://www.pbs.org/show/pocket-sketching/ relies on the black bleeding.

 

She uses something similar to Pigma Micron (nylon porous point pens) and after sketching the outlines runs a damp brush over the edges to drag ink inwards (or outwards) to provide some shading underlayer. As I recall, she claims the ink does become permanent AFTER the water application has dried.

Edited September 14, 2020 by BaronWulfraed

[AmandaW]

Heh... and here https://www.pbs.org/show/pocket-sketching/ relies on the black bleeding.

 

She uses something similar to Pigma Micron (nylon porous point pens) and after sketching the outlines runs a damp brush over the edges to drag ink inwards (or outwards) to provide some shading underlayer. As I recall, she claims the ink does become permanent AFTER the water application has dried.

That looks interesting - I think I do something similar with Pilot V Pens as well as some fountain pen inks - but the video won't play for me. Is it because I'm outside the US? Is anyone else able to watch it? It says "We're sorry, but this video is not available."

[A Smug Dill]

... the video won't play for me. Is it because I'm outside the US?

I think so.

 

Is anyone else able to watch it?

Well, yes, but I had to use a VPN service and (in particular) an exit node in the US. I tried a German exit node and it didn't work.

 

It says "We're sorry, but this video is not available."

The geo-blocking is fairly rudimentary, and only implemented at the 'front door', so to speak, without secondary checking upon the second .m3u8 file being accessed upon presumed successful redirect from the initial .m3u8 file.

 

I now have the URLs for the redirected .m3u8 files for each of the ten episodes, and they aren't geo-blocked. Let me know if you don't have subscriber access to a VPN service already, with which to circumvent the geo-blocking.

[BaronWulfraed]

That looks interesting - I think I do something similar with Pilot V Pens as well as some fountain pen inks - but the video won't play for me. Is it because I'm outside the US? Is anyone else able to watch it? It says "We're sorry, but this video is not available."

Can't help with the streaming... I'm capturing it on a DVR from my local PBS station (which, strangely, appears to be the producer of the series, given that I just set the "local station" to my old California address: WQED, and the "Pocket Sketching is a local public television program presented by WGVU." didn't change. WGVU is my local station (run by Grand Valley State University -- used to be WGVC when I was attending).

[AmandaW]

Yes, that was it - restricted to the US. Thankyou. I found some footage on YouTube to confirm what it showed. 21 seconds of it, very generous, but enough to see.

 

Pilot V Pens work too because, like the pens in the video, the wash is the same hue as the line, rather than coming out more blue or purple as some blacks do. Those are disposable though so I've been hunting for fountain pen inks which do the same and have recently found Kaweco Black Pearl and J Herbin Perle Noire (are they the same ink?). That's not to say a different "undercolour" can't be an interesting look, but for this it's using the grey to mix with the watercolour wash for shadows and getting a tinted wash could muddy the colour.

 

(Sorry if this is off-topic. I wanted to leave this research result somewhere for anyone looking.)

[A Smug Dill]

I'll tell you which ink I found to not be waterproof, as claimed on the product label, for painting over with water or watercolour:

 

[AmandaW]

I'll tell you which ink I found to not be waterproof, as claimed on the product label, for painting over with water or watercolour:

 

Is the paper in sheet form? If so, you might consider printing with a laser printer, then cutting afterwards. Laser printing should be waterproof (but not inkjet). Some older photocopiers which use similar toner technology too.

[A Smug Dill]

Is the paper in sheet form? If so, you might consider printing with a laser printer, then cutting afterwards. Laser printing should be waterproof (but not inkjet).

 

 

Yes, the Arttec Como Sketch Pad I have is a stack of A3 sheets glue-bound at the top edge, but I can get the same paper in A4 pads too.

 

However, I've already tried cutting one of the A3 sheets into two A4 sheets, feeding it through the manual feeder slot on my laser printer, and printing the image on it. The long and short of it is that the paper didn't jam, but it caused trouble all the same, despite my having selected the thickest paper setting available. By the time the second sheet went through, random speckles of black were all over the sheet on parts that ought to have been blank; I think the thickness of the paper caused some toner to end up on the roller mechanism. It took about ten sheets of regular printing afterwards for the pages not to come out defaced.

 

It's a little questionable about the copyright aspect of using the downloaded digital image from the stamp vendor in such a manner anyway, especially if I may be posting photos or scans of the odd ink swatch card online from time to time, but that's a whole another discussion topic for some other time. (I'll admit I have posted a handful of photos earlier with printed, instead of stamped, images on test cards while I was waiting for the stamp I ordered to physically arrive, so as to work on the format of the swatch cards ahead of the event.) Whereas I'm happy to assume that, by purchasing the latex stamp from the vendor, I've implicitly acquired an unlimited licence to use the stamped images in my original 'artwork' and exhibit or share photos of its artefacts.

 

By the way, the (Australian-made) Arttec Como Sketch Pad 210gsm paper works a helluva lot better than Canson Drawing 220 (220gsm) paper for ink swatching, even though they're in the same category of mixed media paper and are sold at roughly the same price point in art supplies stores here, at least for my purposes because I don't want the ink to spread beyond the edges of what I've carefully drawn with a water brush pen.

[AmandaW]

 

It's a little questionable about the copyright aspect of using the downloaded digital image from the stamp vendor in such a manner anyway, especially if I may be posting photos or scans of the odd ink swatch card online from time to time, but that's a whole another discussion topic for some other time. (I'll admit I have posted a handful of photos earlier with printed, instead of stamped, images on test cards while I was waiting for the stamp I ordered to physically arrive, so as to work on the format of the swatch cards ahead of the event.) Whereas I'm happy to assume that, by purchasing the latex stamp from the vendor, I've implicitly acquired an unlimited licence to use the stamped images in my original 'artwork' and exhibit or share photos of its artefacts.

 

That's an issue that's easily fixed with original art to which you own the rights. What's your favourite ink bottle?

 

I use 210gsm Quill Multiboard from Officeworks for swatching and put it through the laser printer's straight feed rather than the tray.

 

[XYZZY]

It's a little questionable about the copyright aspect of using the downloaded digital image from the stamp vendor in such a manner anyway, especially if I may be posting photos or scans of the odd ink swatch card online from time to time, but that's a whole another discussion topic for some other time. (I'll admit I have posted a handful of photos earlier with printed, instead of stamped, images on test cards while I was waiting for the stamp I ordered to physically arrive, so as to work on the format of the swatch cards ahead of the event.) Whereas I'm happy to assume that, by purchasing the latex stamp from the vendor, I've implicitly acquired an unlimited licence to use the stamped images in my original 'artwork' and exhibit or share photos of its artefacts.

 

 

IANAL, but I would think that your logic for fair use would extend to you scanning an impression made with the stamp that you purchased, then using that scan to print via laser printer. I'm assuming similar use though: you use the print of the scanned stamp for your own swatch cards, and then post images of swatch cards actually have a swatch on them.

 

I do like the stamp you're using, and hope you find an appropriate ink to use with it.

[nibtip]

Yes, that was it - restricted to the US. Thankyou. I found some footage on YouTube to confirm what it showed. 21 seconds of it, very generous, but enough to see.

 

Pilot V Pens work too because, like the pens in the video, the wash is the same hue as the line, rather than coming out more blue or purple as some blacks do. Those are disposable though so I've been hunting for fountain pen inks which do the same and have recently found Kaweco Black Pearl and J Herbin Perle Noire (are they the same ink?). That's not to say a different "undercolour" can't be an interesting look, but for this it's using the grey to mix with the watercolour wash for shadows and getting a tinted wash could muddy the colour.

 

(Sorry if this is off-topic. I wanted to leave this research result somewhere for anyone looking.)

Perle noire est français, aber Kaweco ist Deutsch. No way the same ink.One is free flowing the other on the dry side.

Both are very ... black.

On the other hand Caran d'Ache and Kaweco might have the same german or austrian manufacturer.

https://fountainpenfollies.com/2015/10/04/are-kaweco-inks-related-to-caran-dache-inks/2/

Edited September 16, 2020 by nibtip