Brun Sepia Pigment Ink

Pigment Ink by Platinum

I’ve recently found a bottle of Brun Sepia Pigment ink on my shelf and realised that it was a very long time ago when I played with it last time. I was wondering what the ink could do and how can I incorporate it into my work, so I’ve decided to create some swatches to keep them for reference and record my notes as well.

This pigment ink is advertised as waterproof when dried, water resistant when wet, fade-resistant, permanent and suitable for fountain pens. Some pigment inks have a potential to clog them so there is a general word of caution to be careful when you use higher value pens as you don’t really want to ruin their nib. It comes with inner reservoir to use when there is a small amount of ink in the bottle which is incredibly handy and unlike other brands, you don’t need to buy it separately.

For testing and playing with Brun Sepia Pigment ink I used:

• Fabriano Accademia Smooth Cartridge 200gsm paper
• Platinum Ink – Brun Sepia
• Rosemary & Co Spotter brush size 8, 6 and 4
• Dip Pen with Nikko G nib
• 0.3 non-branded mechanical pencil
• Water

Swatches

I’ve decided to create three types of swatches to give me an overall picture of what to expect from working with this ink:

1. Tonal values scales with diluted ink and some ink attributes – to find out the basic characteristics
2. Tonal illustration – to see how it would look like if only diluted ink is used

Swatch 1 – Tonal Scales

I prepared three ink washes, Light (L), Medium (M) and Dark (D) by diluting ink with water in various proportions. I used pure undiluted ink only for the darkest dark in my tonal scale at the bottom and for the line work in my drawing only. If I’ve used the undiluted ink as my Dark wash, then line work would not show.

Ink on its own has a medium tone, at least to me looks like this, and I struggled to create washes with good contrast between them. After going back and forth, I’ve managed to create L, M and D washes which were just about right.

Swatch 2 – Monochromatic Illustration

As mentioned earlier, ink itself seems to be more on the medium tone side and I was struggling a little to make the dark tones without using undiluted ink.

To make my darks darker, I had to put multiple layers over previous layer to create a better contrast.

Brun Sepia Platinum Pigment Ink Conclusion

• Ink can be erased with standard eraser to create highlights or remove minor mistakes
• Waterproof – when submerged or exposed to plain water does not re-activate
• Ink is not 100% “brush-proof” on smooth cartridge paper and can be re-activated with wet brush
• Not sure how lightfast it is – further testing is needed
• Ink is transparent, with pinkish undertone and is medium in tone value – not too dark but not too light either
• Can be layered either undiluted or diluted to Light, Medium, or Dark consistency
• I was able to layer about three to four layers of ink – more than that did not make much difference
• Very nice to use with either brush or dip pen
• Could be great as a wash over Grisaille under painting- further testing is needed
• Did not clog my Preppy fountain pen even though I had not used it for almost a year. I would not recommend leaving ink in pen when it is not in use