With every review, I try to create a drawing using only the ink I am reviewing. These small one-ink pieces are an excellent way to show the colour-range nuances that are hidden within the ink. And I totally enjoy the fun couple of hours these inkxperiments provide me: playing around with the ink in a creative way. Not surprisingly, the inkxperiment is for me the most enjoyably part in the making of a review 😉
Inspiration for this inkxperiment comes from the namesake Lara Croft movie I revisited recently: a fun constant-action adventure movie. Definitely not a brainy movie, but the title got me thinking about the origins of life. In puddles of nutrient-rich water on infant Earth, complex molecules arose, that – given aeons of time and billions of tries – resulted in self-replicating structures, that ultimately form the building blocks of life. And from these humble beginnings come the variety of species we know today, like the majestic pine forest…
For this drawing, I started with a piece of A4 HP photo paper. I first drew the land borders, drawing them with water into which I dripped pure ink. The colours are real… bright blue, bright green, teal – all this from that single sabimidori bottle. Next I created the sky for the pine forest, printing a pattern with a piece of kitchen paper dipped in ink. I then drew the spheres where the “life cooking” happened, that created the complex molecules. All that in puddles of nutrient-rich water, which I drew with Q-tips dipped in multiple water/ink ratios. Finally I used my fountain pen to draw the pine forests, and to add some texture to the water. The final picture gives you a good idea of what can be achieved with sabimidori as a drawing ink.
See also: ink review : TACCIA Ukiyo-e Hokusai sabimidori
[Originally published on the Fountain Pen Network, on 18 July 2022]
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