Dip pens can be used with either while fountain pens are best used with water soluble ink to avoid the ink drying and clogging the pen. There are also permanent water soluble inks than can be diluted in water but once dry can not be rewetted, which are usually better suited to brush or dip pen work.Ĭalligraphy inks are also available waterproof or water soluble.

Rewettable water soluble inks offer an open working time, and are suitable for use with refillable fountain pens. Waterproof drawing inks tend to be made with pigment and shellac binder (a resin secreted by the lac bug) or an acrylic emulsion, and can be diluted with water while wet.

Drawing inks can be pigment or dye based – generally dye based inks are less lightfast than those made with pigment, and may fade with prolonged exposure to sunlight. Inks formulated for drawing, painting or calligraphy are usually very fluid (somewhere between milk and water in consistency) and vary in transparency, lightfastness and water solubility. While watercolour from a tube is usually diluted a little with water prior to application, ink is more frequently applied neat. Ink based processes tend to be altered by the choice of tools used, rather than modifying the colour itself, although there are mediums available for some of the inks described below. There are fewer inks than there are paints that can span a variety of image making processes. They are formulated for more specific art processes – such as for pen work, printmaking or intense splashes of colour to be applied with a brush or pipette. They are adaptable and can be mixed with mediums for thick impasto brush marks, or thinned out to optimise transparency and luminosity. The very best fine art paints are formulated to offer you as many single pigment colours so that you can mix exactly what hue you require, without any compromise of vibrancy. What’s the Difference Between Ink and Paint? Lightfast inks tend to be made with pigments held within a clear binder, but there are also non-lightfast inks made from dyes available – which can offer vibrant colour that can be used for work that is not exposed to lots of light – such as sketchbook work, or work intended for reproduction. The term ‘ink’ is used to describe thick buttery substances, as well as liquids that will drip from a pipette. The characteristics of ink vary wildly to suit specific applications.

What is Ink? Ink is a liquid with a pigment or dye based colouring used for painting, drawing and printmaking purposes.

Acrylic ink vs india ink