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A trip to the art supply store made me think about ink bases
I was at Blick in Chicago last week, looking for some new watercolor paints. I ended up wandering over to the calligraphy section and saw something that stuck with me. They had a whole display of liquid watercolors in dropper bottles, right next to the fountain pen inks. The colors were amazing, really bright and saturated. I started thinking, those are just dyes in a water base, right? It got me wondering how many of us are starting from scratch with pure dyes versus modifying existing inks. It seems like a lot of the talk online is about mixing brand name inks together, which is fun, but maybe there's a whole other level if you begin with the raw colorants. Has anyone here tried making an ink completely from dry dyes or concentrated liquid color like that? I'm curious about the first steps, like finding a safe surfactant or something to stop it from feathering on cheap paper.
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christopher_west16mo ago
Sounds like a lot of work just to get ink on paper.
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