How soon one can wash over Diamine REGISTRAR’S ink without worrying about smearing the lineart?
That was the question that ended the PREVIOUS round. In order to find the answer, I devised a simple experiment. I drew a figure, which took me six minutes to complete, and washed over with J. Herbin GRIS NUAGE immediately after. I measured the time the drawing took so I could know how long the very first parts of drawing bonded with paper before I proceeded to brush:
As you can see, the uper part of figure, which I drew first, held admirably and no problem can be detected. Only in the lower parts of legs, which were drawn last and had maybe just under two minutes of calm before the washing struck, showed some smearing. The worst part is enlarged in the circular cut-out.
The second drawing I completed as the first (I am not a robot that gets everything done in six minutes – it just happened that way), but waited for five minutes before starting the wash. This additional “buffer-time” gave the opportunity for ink to bond with paper and everything went pretty fine. Some slightest traces can still be found, but for this kind of loose sketching I consider them to be negligible.
Waiting a bit more would clear it all, but might not be as practical in the “plain air” scenario. So I refrained from doing ten and fifteen minutes comparisons, believing them to be more of the academic than practical use. It has to be said that this round was done on 270 gr watercolor paper, FABRIANO ACQUARELLO TORCHON, and for two reasons. It is a kind of paper I would use for outdoor sketching and I wanted to see how a paper meant for wet work would accept this ink.
Now, for the last question, altough it doesn’t require a next round of testing. Would I replace Platinum CARBON BLACK with Diamine REGISTRAR’S?
If I only could use one, the answer is – no. Although REGISTRAR’S performed better than expected, it doesn’t offer such convincing bomb-proofness as CARBON BLACK. It remains my TOP waterproof ink. But if I love it so much, why I even bothered with REGISTRAR’S? Well, it’s obvious advantage lies in it’s resistance to feathering. When I can control my workflow, CARBON BLACK rules. But in course of my signing sessions I’m often handed various paper makes and qualities and here REGISTRAR’S could come handy. Time will tell.
NOTE: The first part of testing Diamine REGISTRAR’S can be found HERE.