Working with Historic & Mediaeval Ink

Last week I discussed the remarkable restraint I showed in shopping at L. Cornelissen & Son art supply while abroad.
I opened these brown glass bottles of historical inks this week and gave them a test drive.

The smell was the first thing I noticed as being so much different than the current inks I own and use. They smell like the outdoors. They smell woody and earthy. I like it. It’s almost like a fine wine.

The next thing I noticed was the viscosity. These inks are much thinner than the current commercially processed inks I have in my inventory.

But! The best surprise was the Iron Oak Gall color. It went onto the paper as a pale gray and then dried to the blackest of black.

See the sped-up video below of my experimental session with these inks. I use a traditional calligraphy pen as well as an ink paintbrush.

In the sketch above, I used both the Iron Oak Gall and Walnut inks along with a hint of watercolor for some color.