ACRYLIC INK

The drawing above was done using acrylic ink rather than watercolors.

Turns out, acrylic ink behaves nearly identically to watercolors. It applies easily with the same watercolor brush that you normally use. The washes are transparent. The application of a wash over a wash that has dried does not lift the first wash.  And the dry time is about the same.

One difference is that there is a greater intensity to the colors and tones. There is a greater intensity, that is, when compared to the watercolor brand that I use. As I have said before, I do not use the most expensive watercolors on the planet.

The set I bought is the Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Water-Resistant Artists Ink.  Link here to the Dick Blick website for the ink. The set was very basic with six colors;  it is what they call their Primary Colors set.   The bottles are glass.  The lids have medicine dropper type squeeze nozzles, which makes it easy to dispense ink into your mixing vessels.

The first reference to acrylic ink in these pages was the architectural drawing that we observed at MOMA a couple of years ago; see the page Transparent Drawing At MOMA. That drawing was created using an airbrush to apply the color tones.

The drawing above is also another installment of S.L.M.M, or Smells Like Malic Moulds;  a Transparent Drawing Original and a topic which has not been addressed in these pages in awhile.

I think that I could use these inks on a daily basis.  Yet I have not found anything easier, effective and transportable than my small watercolor set.  This foray into another medium brings me back to the Transparent Drawing Manifesto;  We are problem solvers, we are not artists.  Who really cares if the tones are a bit more intense with the inks?  All that matters is how much work the drawing does.