Ink is a liquid with a pigment or dye based colouring used for painting, drawing, and printmaking purposes. The characteristics of ink vary wildly to suit specific applications. The term ‘ink’ is used to describe thick buttery substances as well as liquids that will drip from a pipette. Lightfast inks tend to be made with pigments held within a clear binder but there are also non-lightfast inks made from dyes available – which can offer vibrant colour that can be used for work that is not exposed to lots of light – such as sketchbook work or work intended for reproduction. For further learning, you can join the tingology with us.

What’s the Difference Between Ink and Paint?
The very best fine art paints are formulated to offer you as many single pigment colours as possible so that you can mix exactly what hue you need without any compromise of vibrancy. They are versatile and can be mixed with mediums for thick impasto brush marks, or thinned out to optimise transparency and luminosity. Inks are generally less versatile. They are designed for more specific art processes – either for pen work or printmaking, or really vibrant splashes of colour to be applied with a brush or pipette. There are far fewer inks available than there are paints that can span a range of image making processes. Ink based processes are more often altered by the tool choice used, rather than by changing the actual colour, though there are some mediums for some of the inks described below that can be used.

Though watercolour from a tube is usually diluted a little with water before being applied, ink is most often applied undiluted.

Apart from that, calligraphy inks are either waterproof or water-soluble. Dip pens can use either, but fountain pens, which work best with water-soluble ink, do not dry out and block the pen. Traditionally, too, calligraphy inks are more opaque as opposed to drawing inks.