Putting ink on the paper.

There are four preferred types of writing fluid.  The most commonly used inks, and I use the term loosely here, are iron gall ink, fountain pen ink, sumi ink, and gouache.  Ink can be fast or slow.  Slow inks are more viscous and less likely to bleed.  Gouache and sumi ink are on the slower end of the spectrum, with iron gall inks sort of in the middle, and fountain inks on the faster end of the spectrum.  It will become apparent, with use, what I mean by fast and slow.  I’ll say that you get a better line with slower strokes with slower inks, and faster strokes with faster inks.  Ink can be thinned to make it faster, or it can be thickened with gum arabic, which will slow the ink down somewhat.  It is best to start with a slower ink; it will be easier to control your lines as you learn.

I recommend starting with an iron gall ink or a sumi ink.  They are slower inks.  Their viscosity is higher relative to fountain pen ink for instance.  Pen white (which is usually a gouache) is also a slower ink.  You can move on to pen white fairly quickly if you want to buy some black card stock.  Really, any color card stock will do, but black is most useful because the high contrast makes your letter forms very visible.  You may also want to purchase a soapstone pencil to draw your guild lines onto colored card stock.  It leaves white pencil lines.  I should also mention several companies make black erasers; these are the best erases to use on black card stock.

Iron gall ink settles into the paper, as do most fountain pen inks.  This is sometimes referred to as a biting ink.  Sumi inks and gouache sit on top of the paper like paint.  Gouache is paint, opaque watercolor paint.  Most pen white is gouache, or acrylic paint.  Sumi inks belong to the family of carbon inks, which are emulsions of carbon particles, soot in the case of sumi.  India ink, which we won’t be discussing, is another carbon ink.  Iron gall, sumi, gouache, and fountain pen ink may all be thinned with purified water, or ox gall (a watercolor medium).  You will find ox gall makes ink dramatically wetter and faster.  Gum arabic, another watercolor medium, can be used to thicken all of these.  Windsor Newton sells a line of paint mediums, including ox gall and gum arabic. 

Here is a list of inks I’ve used and can recommend.  The iron gall inks are:  Old World Iron Gall Ink, Blott’s Iron Gall Ink, Brian Walker’s Copperplate Ink, and Neil McCaffrey’s Penman’s Black.  The sumi inks are Yasutomo sumi, Yasutomo Vermillion sumi, Moon Palace sumi, and Best bottle sumi.  Yasutomo also makes a fairly cheap student grade sumi stick.  It makes nice ink, but grinding is tiresome.  Fountain pen inks that I’ve used are Private Reserve, Montblanc, Lamy, and Waterman. I prefer Lamy Blue-Black.  I keep hearing it may have some iron gall in it.  I've not been able to confirm this, but believe it to be true because it etches nibs just like an iron gall ink.  Every calligrapher should also have some walnut ink.  Buy your first batch premixed, but considering getting the crystals when you are more familiar with it.

Starting out you will be fine with the Old World Iron Gall Ink, or the Vermillion Sumi.  Old World is the cheapest of the Iron Galls, and good to learn with.  There is not so much a quality as a property difference between the available, pre-made iron gall inks.  Old World goes on the darkest.  The others get just as dark over time, through oxidation.  The vermillion sumi is one of the easiest inks to control.  If you find yourself getting frustrated with a letter form, get out some of your vermillion sumi and practice a little while with it.

My favorite inks are Brian Walker’s Copperplate ink, Best bottle sumi, walnut ink, Vermillion sumi, and Lamy Blue-Black.  They all behave differently on the different papers I’ve listed. Each can be used legibly with each paper I’ve listed though.  I’ve also found I can turn a good line on the Clairefontaine Japon Papier with Selennier India Ink, but I wouldn’t recommend it for any of the other papers.  I wouldn’t bother with india ink at all if you are just starting out.

There are some things I should tell you about the various iron gall inks I have recommended.  Neil McCaffrey’s Penman’s Black requires constant attention.  It grows mold, and must be skimmed.  If you are not going to use all of it quickly, or if you are sensitive to mold, don’t buy it.  Blott’s Iron Gall Ink is made directly from a medieval recipe.  I consider Brian Walker’s Copperplate Ink to be the best, but only by a narrow margin.  It is an adaptation of a mediaeval recipe.  His ink is considered to be of archival quality.  I don’t have direct experience with how these iron gall inks age compared to one another because I don’t have work that is 10 or 20 years old.  Iron gall ink will begin to eat at the paper if the paper doesn’t have a basic ph., or if the inks were mixed too acidic.  If your iron gall ink seems like it needs some freshening, strain it with a fine wire mesh and add a cap full of white vinegar.

And now a few more facts about sumi ink.  If you are going to use Moon Palace sumi, you may wish to dilute it up to 50% with purified water.  Some tap waters will cause mold growth in ink.  Best bottle sumi is considered ideal for use straight out of the bottle.  Moon Palace and Best bottle are two of the finest liquid sumi inks you can buy.  Sumi sticks are generally of better quality than liquid sumi.  Sumi sticks that yield a brown black ink are made with vegetable soot and are mostly Japanese in origin.  The sticks that yield blue black ink are predominately Chinese and made from pine soot.  sumi and india inks are carbon inks and do not mix well with the iron gall inks.  Small amounts of sumi will sit in an iron gall ink, but you may notice tiny granules in your ink.  Mixing India ink with iron gall ink will immediately cause a precipitate.  It is a foul sludge, don’t mix them.  You can of course mix like with like, all day long.