Ask Drawn: White Ink
One of the most vexing things to buy in the art store is white ink.
Once you’re home, you never know what you’re going to get. Either it’s too thick or it’s too runny and somehow it’s never opaque enough. It would be great to find a nice opaque brand that I can also also load onto a pen nib.
Does the perfect white ink exist?
Any suggestions? What are the various strengths and weaknesses of the different brands? Which white inks should be blacklisted?
Please leave your suggestions in the comments.
the best liquid white i’ve got was winsor & Newton white Calligraphik ink, and yet it has inconviniences… other solution is talens guache with thin brushes.. Sorry the english :)
I just picked up a bottle of Windsor and Newton ‘Bleed proof white’. It’s fairly thick but is certainly opaque enough
My preference is a product called Pro White, an opaque watercolor I use extensively, particularly for highlights. It comes in a 1 oz glass jar and lasts forever and is effective in airbrush, pen and brush. Marketed by Daler-Rowney Bracknell in England and Daler-Rowney U.S.A. Jamesburg N.J.
This topic for some reason made me want to finally register and post.
Recently I bought a bottle of the Daler Rowney FW. acrylic artists ink and I am loving the results I’m getting with it.
I agree with ebelga. I use to have white gouache for those tasks. I can control the opacity in a way I can’t with white inks.
Pro White by Daler-Rowney is the most opaque, but you have to get it to the right consistency, and it takes patience. It’s hard to provide yourself with enough at a time, but it has the white that’s closest to watercolor paper (for covering up stray lines), and in layers is opaque enough to use as highlights. It doesn’t erase itself when used in layers, which is a huge advantage, it only gets more opaque. (just give it time to dry between applications).
Actually, maybe analogartist was luckier than me, because the jar I found was a jar of dry (pretty much like a block) white, not wet white — I don’t know how you got it into a pen if it comes the way I have it! In any case, even dry and used like a block of watercolor, it’s very good.
I use Pro White as well, but I can’t imagine how it would work in a nib pen. I simply use a very thin watercolor brush and varying amounts of water to the the amount of opacity and flow I want. My only complaint is that I need a wrench – yes, literally a WRENCH — to open the jar lid each time I use it.
Ink? What’s that?
Won’t that goop up my wacom tablet?
Actually, back in the day I used Pro White too. But only with a brush. And the comment about the lid is right on, the older the jar, the harder it got to open it.
I haven’t found a solution I really like yet. Of the above options, how do they do when you use black ink over them? That seems to me like a key component of a good white ink solution. Most of the options I have used lighten black ink and cause it to easily smear.
I find the best white ink is found in Photoshop ;)
I just use the basic Windsor & Newton ink, it’s a bit too wishy washy. It has some neat looking polar bears on it which is a plus though.
when i USED to draw (i mean when i used to draw a LOT), the BEST white ink i ever came across was called pen-opake made by the fine folks at steig products in lakewood, nj. rumor had it they would grind up the bones of albino mice in their formula — and that’s what gave it that white-as-white quality. problem was, when you used it, you had this sudden craving for cheese. just did a search and apparently they don’t make it any longer — and all the art dorks (at the TOP of that list, the comic book dudes who draw the big bicep superheroes) are lamenting the fact.
http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Iu8&q=pen-opake&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw
I use Pro White, too, but haven’t tried it with a pen nib… it would need to be seriously watered down. I only use it as “white out” for touch-ups with a brush.
I’ll add to the Pro White pile, I’ve tried some others and stuck with the pro white. I buy the little glass jar and leave the cap off for a week or so until the thing is a solid cake, I’ll add water to the surface of that and mix up a bit of it to whatever cinsistency I need, you can thin it way down or get a nice thick mess if that’s what you want. Just mix it up with a brush that you don’t care much about, then dip a nice winsor & newton series 7 into the concoction for great details and such. This has worked out well for me for a good while now. Just to throw it out there, my vote for the best black ink is FW Acrylic Artists ink… excellent dark black coverage with no chalky residue…
In my airbrush days I used a lot of Magic Color inks. They are actually acrylics but diluted to the consistancy of milk for use in an airbrush. The white was very opaque.
Maybe you can also give Createx colors a try.
“If It’s Optic White, It’s the Right White.”
Yeah, I’ve been reading Invisible Man.
Just adding a tip of the hat to the Pro White users…
what about a white clayboard (or scrapperboard)? there is a layer of thin white clay that you can reach down by scrapping it… for the inks works looks like a nice solution to me. (i’ll keep trying on the english lessons :))
I use copic opaque white, FW white acrylic ink and Luma bleed proof white.
I have a jar of Pentel poster color for artist in white, it takes a few coats to be completely opaque, and applied with a brush. It seems to work the same as W&N bleed proof white.
Otherwise I use a white milky gel pen when I’m lazy. :D
regarding the lid to the jar of Pro White! lid? what lid? Don’t even bother putting the lid back on. I haven’t seen my lid for years! you don’t need it. Use a spray bottle to wet the top when you want to start melting it down for your purposes. You have more control over it that way.
White out. Also Robert Crumb’s choice.
I’d recommend Holbein’s Aeroflash ink. It’s desinged for airbrush, but works with pens too. It’s acrylic based similar to FW. Don’t let it dry on the nib. I use cheap bamboo pens with it. There’s another brand by Schmincke called Aerocolor.
I’d also second ebelg’a recommendation of using scratchboard. Claybord is white or black, and with the white you just lay down more ink.
My personal favorite: Winsor & Newton Designer’s Gouache Permanent White.
I use a pentel fine and ultra fine point correction pen. Am I cruising for trouble? Please don’t kill me…It’s so opaque and with staedtler and sakura pens you can draw over and over and over again.
fw and WN are good products- my particular favorite flowing, ink-like white is liquid golden acrylic titanium white. it also depends on what kind of correction or effect you need. if i need to “re-surface” the area- like redraws, i use white gesso, so there is a surface more like paper. but in the end, i just use one of my tubes of white acrylic and water it down in a dish or what have you for quick fixes. or photoshop.
Thanks so much for this question, Matt, and all you folks who’ve responded. Went to buy some FW White yesterday (available even in Australia, where we mostly forced to work with burnt sticks) and it’s great stuff.