Papers and Inks

By geoff Published November 6, 2023 Ink, Paper

This is just a test I did of 6 different inks on 6 different papers.

The shots below are taken with a USB microscope, looking at the top left of each ‘w’ that can be seen in the photo above.

There are some interesting things to note here:

the visibility of the fibres of the various papers
in some cases, the cracks in the pigment (I guess it’s soot?) is visible in the Herbin ink (on the Rhodia paper, for example)
the difference between the dye-based fountain pen inks and the pigment-based inks can be seen in the way the former are pulled into the paper whereas the calligraphy inks appear to sit on the surface.
in some cases, the impression left by the two tines of the nib are visible (the most obvious is the Herbin test on the TomoeRiver paper)
lastly, it’s interesting to see the sheen in the Pilot and the Diamine inks on some papers, but not others.