Materials I Use: My Favorite Ink

Along with pens and brushes to use with it!

Here is my “holy grail” ink that I have been using a ton lately:

It’s a waterproof ink from Lennon Tool Bar called Cloudy Day, named after murky clouds on hazy days in Taiwan. I really love working with dark blue grey colors to make things a wee more interesting than pure black, and this ink delivers!

After buying this ink in January from the beloved Yoseka Stationery, I tried using it in my favorite pens which I’ve demoed in the photo below.

• Pentel pocket brush pen - great for quick and expressive sketching

• Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen - great for everyday writing (or writing 50+ wedding thank you cards as I recently did)

• Kakimori stainless steel nib with Tachikawa nib holder - great for more detailed sketching as it has a really nice variable line quality

The Pentel and Pilot are refillable pens—you can either buy refills of the default black (non-waterproof) ink, or use a syringe to fill up the empty cartridge after cleaning out the residue. After refilling my pens a few times with the syringe I’ve realized that a bottle of ink lasts incredibly long compared to the refills.

The Kakimori is a dip pen, not one with a cartridge, which means you can swap out inks easily during one writing or drawing session. It also holds a lot of ink upon dip with its multiple ink slots, and you can draw at an angle to get the wider line variations.

Pens are fun to use, but I prefer a thicker line so I usually make finished artwork with brushes and water. Adding water is how you can get a wide range of value and contrast. I am still delighted by how this ink doesn’t reactivate on paper, but it can reactivate on the palette, unlike india ink which I’ve used in the past.

If you’re curious about more waterproof inks, here are others I have heard great things about but have yet to try:

• Noodler’s Lexington Gray

• Platinum Carbon Black

• Rohrer and Klingner sketchINK

Do you have a favorite ink and/or pen you like to use? Share in the comments as I’m always willing to try new recs 👀

Stay tuned for more in the materials series, and check out my materials post on pencils and pastels if you haven’t yet!