May/June Newsletter

 Working with Walnut Ink

We've all played with colored inks. They are so much fun. I love Indian ink because it's permanent and the acrylic inks are great because you can use layer upon layer. See my Pen and Ink article from October 22, 2015 for details on using inks in general.

But have you ever used walnut ink? For years I've work with Tom Norton's Designs, which sells walnut ink in several different bottles. And I have been greatly impressed with it. That is until I spilled almost the entire bottle--what a mess, on my clothes, floor and drawing table. Very easy to do--not a fun cleanup. I still have about 10 ml left. 

Tom Norton's Walnut Ink

So of course, I thought it was time to buy a new bottle. But instead of the Norton brand, I opted for an entirely new ink from Hickory Hill Arts. The description really captured my interest--made directly from walnuts and triple hand pressed (sounded good) and made by artists. However, I was a bit disappointed when I used the Hickory ink with my dip pen and found it to be fairly light in color as opposed to the Norton brand. So why was there such a difference between both inks.

This is when doing some research can help with a decision. Subsequently, I went up to Google and found the difference. For one, Norton's ink is not made from walnuts but is basically a watercolor ink with pigments that have the look of natural walnut ink. Hickory Ink is made completely made from the green outer husks of walnuts. The tannins in the husks create a brown color. 

However, natural walnut ink is NOT acid free. The acidity in the walnuts can cause the ink to cause some archival problems. Although, Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo worked with walnut ink and their works are still with us, time has seen some fading and paper damage.  

Interestingly, pure walnut ink has a tendency to etch into the paper, whereas the non-walnut inks sit on top of the paper. Natural ink is also water soluble. Norton's ink seems to lay down darker and is water soluble, although it's made with synthetic materials. Here's a blurb from the Norton brochure that explains the acidity problem.

"Rembrandt, Da Vinci and Van Gough are just a few of the artists that used walnut ink in their drawings! 

 

Unfortunately their inks were made with real walnuts, which are highly acidic, causing their incredible drawings to fade and the paper to deteriorate over the centuries. Tom Norton's Walnut Drawing Ink® is made with artist grade pigments, not walnuts, and it is both lightfast and acid free."

So how do you use this ink? First off, I use a dip pen but you can easily use your paint brush. I wouldn't recommend using it with a fountain pen, although the ink doesn't contain shellac (the Sennelier brand has shellac, which makes it permanent). Since both Hickory Hill and Tom Norton's are water soluble, you can definitely "play" with the product as soon as hits on paper. This past week in class, we worked on mushrooms.

Mushrooms using Tom Norton's walnut ink  

I drew both mushrooms with my dip pen and then took my brush and spread the ink to create shadow, as well as color in the mushroom on the left. BTW, you don't have to use more ink, just a tad of water will do the trick for spreading.

Finally, here's a link to making your own walnut ink. It takes some time, but I think it would be fun to try. 

What's new in the studio!

Any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at jjgoodell@gmail.com

March 2025 Newsletter

Drawing our feathered friends

This past session, we studied drawing and painting birds. Although I've taught this subject before, I found this time around, I actually learned more than I taught. Part of the reason why is I again returned to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology anatomy page. As you can see in the screen shot shown below, this interactive page helps you learn the different parts of a bird, including the skeleton.

While I don't consider myself an expert at drawing and painting birds, I did find that this site helped a great deal by giving me a deeper understanding at how everything works. Click on the above link to see how interesting the site can be.

We also covered some amazing artists this session (I always highlight an artist each week). Especially interesting is Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593), who is famous for his serial paintings. One in particular is The Four Elements: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. (He also created a series called, The Four Seasons). In our class we were  interested in his use of birds in the Air panting. Granted, it's a little different because his whole portrait is made up of birds. Just incredible. 

Air by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Lastly, after spending four weeks of drawing/painting birds, we ended with breaking all the rules and going with an abstraction/cartoon-like drawings the last week. It was fun. Here's an example of some fun characters.

A great project created by student Darlene Van Luvanee:

And some from me...

 Using a method called atmospheric painting.

 Just having some fun.

I really enjoyed this session and am looking forward to our next session, which begin April 9th. See below for details!