My Favorite Things: Walnut Ink

Of all my most favorite-est things, walnut ink is one of my most favorite-est!  I love the warm, rich color, the fine hairlines, the waterbased ease of clean up; the way it lays down on paper.  I am partial to earth tones and walnut ink is the most lovely brown earthy color.

Last year, I participated in a weekly challenge on WetCanvas.  When it was my turn to challenge the group, I chose a list of musical terminology.  We were to choose a word or words to interpret.  I did several, but my favorite was:

Klangfarbenmelodie (Ger): "tone-color-melody", distribution of pitch or melody among instruments, varying timbre

I rendered it in walnut ink because I knew that walnut ink has varied properties depending upon what kind of nib is used to lay it down.  The ink is distributed in a variety of ways, but in the same 'tone-color-melody among instruments':

The large gothic hand was laid down using a 3.8 Pilot parallel pen, the copperplate script with a Brause 66 EF pointed nib and the upright italic using a Osmiroid fine nib dipped in walnut ink.

Here's a close up:

The image above is an extreme clost up so you can see how the walnut ink gathers along the edge of the stroke.  So pretty.

Here's one more done in walnut ink for the same challenge:

dolcissimo: very sweetly

I frequently use walnut ink for preparatory lettering because it is so easy to clean up.