A surprise post today to let you all know that I got some new ink to play with yesterday… I knew this ink was coming but didn’t expect that it would arrive so soon!

Chantal Vincent gave me a sample of De Atramentis Document White ink that has just arrived at Larrypost. I am waiting for a bottle to arrive, but in the meantime did three quick tests with the ink I have now. (Please don’t ask me where to get it in Europe or USA – I’m sorry I don’t know…. all I know is that Larrypost has some!)

It is ‘opaque’ and permanent and can be used on its own or mixed with other colours to create pastel colours. My first test was to write and draw over a very thick wash of black watercolour. Even though I thought my newly cleaned out yellow preppy pen was totally dry it took me a while to get the ink to full strength and even then, it is not totally opaque. If you are after solid white lines then a gel or paint pen would be a better solution.

However, if like me, you often find the ‘gel lines’ too stark over the top of a watercolour sketch (I often blot the gel lines with my finger), then this is a very interesting alternative. It is quite weird to be using white ink, but I totally fell in love with the shading effect and the wonderful expressive lines it creates. The beads at the end of each stroke are opaque but the lines are more translucent depending on the speed you draw them. Going over a line for the second time makes the line more opaque.

Because it can make pastel ink (more by Peter V on the fountain pen network here) I immediately thought of mixing up some pastel pink (so out of character for me!) but sadly put a bit too much magenta in my little sample. So will have to wait for the bottle to arrive to pastelise this a bit more.

I also mixed up a little brown, a touch of black with some white and got a lovely soft brown. Doesn’t scan well, but is very nice. I am now dreaming about an opaque turquoise ink and maybe an opaque yellow ochre one too. Sorry, I am a hopeless

Finally, but certainly not least, please pop over to Chantal’s Instagram to see her wonderful example of a perfect application of this ink, including a short video showing how nice it is to work with (you can view it on your computer). Chantal does amazing work so if you are in IG, I recommend you follow her. And just for the record, it was Chantal (via Larrypost) who first introduced me to DeA ink a number of years ago.

So in summary, my first impression is that this ink is very impressive for expressive white lines with shading, and ability to achieve very fine lines using a EF fountain pen nib.  Its mixing strengths are still to be explored, but I am excited about them. 

But, if you want solid white lines stick with a gel or paint pen!