Matt and I have been having an argument about whether or not Rosemary & Co. makes good brushes. I had previously taken a recommendation of his and bought a set of five brushes, and subsequently fell in love with brush again. Unfortunately, he has recently redacted his endorsement, and the knife and flaming baton throwing has ensued:

Here is my response to a commentor on the fence about whether to buy these brushes or not:

I have to say Matt and I have been having disagreements about the Rosemary brushes. I was in your same position about six months ago: didn’t have a lot of money to spend but wanted to try a LOT of different kinds of brushes to figure out exactly what sizes and shapes I might like in a brush. For twenty-five bucks, I got five different sized kolinsky series 33 brushes and a watercolor brush. The watercolor brush was decent, but the kolinsky brushes changed what had previously been a firm hatred of brush into a lusty love affair. I f*cking LOVE brush now.

Unlike Matt, I haven’t used a lot of brushes, so I don’t personally know how W&N and Raphael brushes compare, but the complaints I’ve read about Rosemary brushes seem pretty minor things when you’re just starting out and trying to figure out how a brush actually works. If it doesn’t hold as much ink, you’ll just have to dip more. And I’ve never had a problem getting a point or a thick line, or of them splitting except under the greatest pressure. Usually I just get sort of a drybrush look when I apply a lot of pressure.

I still think that Rosemary brushes are an excellent brush for their price, and as I was just saying to Matt: they’re the sort of brush you want to get a lot of just to see how a brush feels. They may not make artists cream their pants like apparently a good W&N does, but they seem like a good start to me.

Plus, once you figure out what size you like best (like how I figured how drastically different a 5 is from a 2, and that I really prefer a 5, which I though I’d prefer the thinner brush!), you can always go out and buy a nicer one in another brand.

As for me? I don’t want to spend $10-$20 on a single brush just to test it out and possibly never use it again! Some of the rosemary’s I bought sit unused (like the 0), but I spent less than $5 on it, so I really don’t mind.

Seriously, for twenty or thirty bucks, you should try a selection and see what you think. I love mine, and I love the faith they’ve given me in brush again that had been destroyed by a BAD WINDSOR AND NEWTON.

So there. (sticks tongue out at Matt)

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I use a Rosemary Pure Sable Kolinsky Series 33 #5 and #2, btw.

I think I’m going to switch from the “Fairfield” (which is apparently Strathmore 300 Series in disguise) 2 ply plate to Strathmore 4 ply plate. The 2 ply actually worked great for brush, but nibs and it do NOT get along. I’m constantly pulling up fibers in the tips of my nibs. The Strathmore 4 ply plate, however, seems to take a real beating from my nib; I can scratch over a wet line with a nib over and over again and its smooth surface persists. It also takes thin, delicate lines well; I can scratch the nib up and still get an even, tiny line as easily as I can drawing the nib down.

I’m also still partial to Rising 3 ply plate, even though it doesn’t work with nibs as well and it’s an off-white color. But there’s something about using brush on it that tactilely, is a real pleasure.

Also: a quick review on Dr. Ph Martin’s Terra Cotta India ink:

I mentioned this ink in my previous post. First, I love the color. It’s a warm, rich, clay color. The red kind of clay you played with in sixth grade pottery class. I know a lot of artists whom prefer Sepia over black ink because of it’s warmth. Personally, I find Sepia still too towards the cool range. Terra Cotta offers a warmth I’d use in whimsical children’s illustration.

This ink is opaque straight from the bottle, I have yet to see it bleed, and it hardens tough as a ROCK. It was utterly impervious to my frenetic erasing; even the thinnest of lines stayed intact. Quite possibly the most eraser-resistant ink I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with!

There are a few unfortunates to this ink, however. It uses large sediment particles, so it has to be periodically closed and shaken, or stirred, or you’ll start getting runny, translucent ink. It also takes forever to dry (several minutes!). For someone like me who tends to start in the middle of the page and work outwards, this isn’t too difficult to work around; I just have to be careful to avoid resting my hand on any lines. If you are, however, like my boyfriend who makes random lines all across the page with no logic whatsoever :P you would probably have a little more frustrations with this ink.

Two Rivkah-ey thumbs-up for Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay Terra Cotta India Ink!

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Guh. Too bad I can’t tell if this paper is 400 series or 500. The samples I got only marked down the thickness, not the grade, and I can’t remember which I ended up getting. ;_; Going to see if New York Central Art Supply has any Canson bristol papers. I didn’t like them with brush, but I’ve heard good things about how they work with nibs, and that they’re a more consistent company. The Strathmore papers I keep trying are just all over the board. Sometimes the quality is phenomenal, and sometimes it’s just cr*p.

OMG. I <3 FONT EMBEDDING. Current generation browsers are finally, FINALLY, moving towards support for embedded fonts, and this means webpages can now look SEXY. (drools all over happy pages)

So yeah, putting the finishing touches on my new site, and EEK does it look pretty! XD And HOLY F*CK has it take forever! ;_; I've been teaching myself PHP and a better understanding of the CSS language (which is actually ridiculously easy once you understand what you can and CAN'T do with it) and everything for the site is finally starting to come together.

HOLY COW I'M SO EXCITED. I feel like I'm getting a new lease on my career and on life. All this energy comes rushing in from nowhere and I want to jump to the sky and shout with joy. The last time I moved, it was a bad, horrible, terrible decision, and in my gut, I knew so. But this time around, I know it's the RIGHT decision, that good things are going to happen, and that I just need to GO. Only ten more days until I move--

HOLYBANANAS!YES!

--and I'll be living in THE most multi-cultural city in the US. Maybe on our planet. I can say "sayonara" to Austin for the time being (though I'll be back to visit!) and "howdy" to my new city.

(hugs New York City)

SO EXCITING. O_O

Back to my website now! Hopefully, next time I update, it'll be from my pretty, brand sparkling new layout.

Eek!

SO EXCITED! \>o

Woo font embedding!

As I’ve been expanding my inking repertoire from pen to brush, I’ve been made aware of the incredible diversity of inks available to black and white media artists . . . and how little information is readily available on the differences between brands.

Through my explorations of different inks and the search to find the ink that was most suitable for me, questions began to arise, like: “Is this ink good for line work or laying down flats?” “Will it ruin my brushes?” “Can I use watercolors on top?” “Why is it grey instead of black?”

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Out of my frustration with appropriated sharing of information, I decided to compile my own cache of reviews for future artists to take advantage of. In this list, you’ll find the traits and qualities unique to each individual ink I tested in order to match them best to the traits you most desire in their own work. There are no superior or inferior brands. There is only whether you can’t stand glossy ink, whether you don’t want to have to wait a long time for it to condense, whether you intend to use it more for line work or flats, whether it needs to be waterproof or if you want it to be able to bleed for effect.

Etc. etc. Etc.

There are some very basic rules to using inks that I’ve come to realize that a huge majority of artists aren’t even remotely aware of–hey, even people like me who’ve been doing this for a few years at least. Like the fact that most india inks are GRAY out of the bottle. Well? Does that mean it’s a bad ink?

No. It means you need to take the bottle cap off and let it dry out for a few days. A few inks are decent from the bottle. But the majority of inks need to be allowed to condense. Some take longer than others. Some need to be let dried out almost half way before they’re even a decent opaque consistency. Still others hardly need any drying at all.

When I use the term “out of bottle”, I am referring to the ink AS IS. No drying. No adding water. Just taking off the cap and dipping the brush in. When I use the term “condensed”, I am referring to ink that has been allowed to dry. And when I use the term “reconstituted”, I am referring to ink that has had water added.

Something else that needs to be studied before delving into reviews is the issue of proper erasing. Most inks WILL fade if you aren’t erasing properly. Please read this Comic Tools post before reading further if you don’t know at least the basics already. I will reference back to it throughout the reviews just to make sure you have. ^_~

In testing these inks, I used for each the same method as you’ll see outlined in the pictures below: I first tested them “out of bottle” on very basic, beginning artists plate bristol paper (Strathmore 300, which just SOAKS UP the ink . . . and not in a good way, because it lightens and diffuses it) by writing out the names and then making gradually widening strokes until I’d pushed the brush and ink as far as it would go. Then, at the upper left, on that same paper, I attempted to create a wash in two different styles: first with broad, overlapping strokes, second with thin, quick strokes. In the middle top, you’ll see where I transfered over to what was recommended to me as a better, yet still easily available paper: Canson’s 2-ply plate bristol. You can see immediately that the out of bottle ink sits more darkly and evenly on a higher quality paper. On the upper right, I took small samples of each ink, let them sit out for half a day, and tested the condensed results. In many, the difference is drastic. In some, not so much. Each reviews measures those qualities.

While, I’ll be testing out the inks I choose for myself on other papers in the future (meaning potential paper reviews!), this is all I have for now. Easily accessible, student grade plate bristol papers.

Also, when I refer to “waterfastness”, I mean how the ink holds up to water abuse. I took strips of paper, covered them in different inks, and let them sit in water for fifteen seconds then set them out to dry. In the color example, I drew a line of ink and went to work scrubbing that line out with a layer of watercolor and a crappy old brush. Most of them held up fine, but a few of them just fell apart.

It took a lot of time testing each individual ink (soooooooo much cleaning in-between to prevent contamination between dips of the brush), writing the reviews in a manner that was easily understood, and putting this in a decent layout. I sincerely hope that the results are worth and that you manage to find the ink (or inks) that are perfect for you.

If you have an ink you would like me to test (or leftover Copics because those are freakin’ expensive and quite a few people asked me to include a test for alcohol based markers), please feel free to donate by contacting me at thegirl -(at)- rivkah -(d0t)- com and I’ll send either my mailing address or my paypal account for art supply funds, and I’ll let you know what inks I buy when you do.

Inks not included in this post that I would particularly like to test would be any of the Deleter inks 1-6, the Windsor & Newton Waterproof India Ink, and Dr. Ph. Martin’s HiCarb Waterproof India Ink. I’ll be updating this page as I add more reviews.

Oh! And please feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments section in order to add to the depth and breadth of these reviews!!

Otherwise . . . Enjoy!

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1) HIGGINS BLACK MAGIC – WATERPROOF INK

Price: $3.52 retail

Accessibility: Found at even the cheapest student art supply stores and practically every online art supply outlet.

Drying time: 23-30 seconds

Erasing: Out of bottle, this is one of the inks that holds up worst to erasing, not only erasing the ink almost completely, but also smudging and streaking over the paper. However, condensing the ink helps with this problem for light erasing over light and semi-light pencils. Heavier pencils and moderate to heavy erasing, however, immediately start to lift the ink away from the paper.

Reflective Properties: Possibly the darkest, densest, most magically matte ink on the market.

General Qualities: Higgins Black Magic is a densely opaque yet pleasantly fluid ink, even straight out of the bottle. In fact, the intensity of this black is so shockingly dark it’s almost incomparable beside any other brand. It leaves crisp, clean edges against the paper that are perfect for fine detail and thin lines and for people who prefer a sharp scan with the minimum amount of cleanup necessary.

Highlights: This ink practically absorbs light. There is no reflection off of this ink, not even the tiniest glare, making it an ink excellent for display in even the most varied of lighting conditions. The only ink I would recommend for use directly out of the bottle. Gets a pretty nifty drybrushing effect.

Potential Drawbacks: Thickens quickly so it’s easy to accidentally overdry. Erases too easily, even well condensed. Does not reconstitute.

Waterfastness: Dries relatively quickly and is as waterfast as they say it is, dried artwork surviving dunking in water and scrubbing with watercolor without even the tiniest bit of bleeding or fading. Attempts to add water to semi-dried ink or reconstitute completely dried ink failed miserably.

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