Dala Drawing Ink is an acrylic, pigmented ink system that dries to a waterproof film. This product is equally suitable for calligraphy, crafts, fine art and air brushing.
Calligraphy
Because our ink is acrylic based, it is ideally suited to dip pen or dip quill work. It is, however, not to be used for refilling your ink reservoirs. Once the ink dries, it cannot be removed, and this dry ink film will eventually destroy the nib of your pen. The product is highly pigmented and, when used correctly, will deliver a crisp, clean-edged image. Be sure to clean your dip pen in water before the ink dries. A good tip is to prepare a glass of water in which you can leave your pen while you are writing. However, do not store your pen in water for long periods of time, as this will erode the nib.
The pigments are highly concentrated and the product may be diluted with water to achieve lighter shades. All the inks are transparent. You could ad white ink to the colours to make them opaque. This will, however, turn your bright colours into pastel.
Crafts
Dala Drawing Inks are used extensively in craft making - usually when crafters require a bright, glazed surface finish. Because they are completely transparent, they cannot be used on dark backgrounds. If you do have a dark background, you should prepare your project with a coat of white Dala Craft Paint. This white background will effectively highlight the colour of the ink. You can now paint the ink onto the white craft paint. This will result in a lively, vibrant surface, which is impossible to achieve with an opaque medium, like craft paint. Wherever your colours come into contact with each other they will blend and create new colour. So, if you paint yellow ink next to blue ink and they overlap, you will have a green band between the two primary colours. This might happen unintentionally, but will add depth and character to you craft work.
Because these are acrylic inks, you can seal your surface with any water based product (We suggest Dala Deco-varnish). The rule for coating is lean before fat, or water before oil. The inks being water based, means that you can also seal your work with any solvent based system.
Fine Art
Artists are successfully using Dala Drawing Inks in much the same manner, as they would water colours. In fact, most of the artists using them, are water colourists. Water Colours essentially consist of a transparent binder and a pigment. They differ from poster paint or gouache, because they contain no extra solids or filler pigments. They rely on the light background of the paper to provide the highlights in their paintings. This is done be decreasing the amount of paint on the surface of the paper. By making the colour more transparent, the artist allows the white paper to be visible through the colour. A watercolour medium could also be used to dilute the colour and achieve the same result.
The only difference between these inks and watercolour is the nature of the binder and the viscosity of the product. Water Colour is traditionally bound by Gum Arabic, while the ink has a synthetic binder. The viscosity of a Water Colour is usually quite high. The viscosity or thickness is really a practical issue. It allows the artist to load a brush and transport the paint between palette and paper without messing. There are materials on the market that will allow you to change the viscosity of the ink to make it more like a Water Colour.