How To Make Calligraphy Ink At Home Tutorial
You are wanting to get started into pointed pen calligraphy and find that you can’t find any calligraphy ink, or maybe you are looking for a cheaper option.
When starting out I remember actually not starting out using ink for my pointed pen calligraphy, and today I am going to be showing you how I did it. So, in this article, I am going to be giving you a full tutorial on how to make calligraphy ink at home and how to use it.
Here is the short and quick answer if you are in a hurry:
You can make calligraphy ink out of acrylic paint, gouache, or watercolor. With gouache or acrylic paint, you can dilute it with water to be able to get some “ink” that you can use with your dip pen.
Now I am going to be showing you the step by step process that you can do to make “ink” out of paint.
This is a summary of today’s article:
- Why You Might Want To Make Your Own Ink
- How To Make Calligraphy Ink From Acrylic Paint
- How To Make Calligraphy Ink With Guache
- How To Make Calligraphy Ink With Watercolor
- How To Use The Ink
- Final Thoughts
Anyway, let’s get started.
Why You Might Want To Make Your Own Ink
So why would you want to do this in the first place? Making your own “ink” can have many benefits that I am going to be talking about in this part of the tutorial, but I am also going to be talking about the negatives.
POSITIVES
One of the main positives of making your own calligraphy ink is that it can actually be more affordable than getting your own ink from a craft store, depending on the ink that you prefer.
For example, a lot of colorful, specifically acrylic inks, can be quite expensive and it isn’t the best consistency for some dip pens. Well creating your own type of acrylic ink at home can help you out.
Also, let us talk about consistency. So you get a new dip pen and you are so excited and get your ink out and ready. But the ink is too thin or too thick for your dip pen. Essentially not all inks work with all dip pens, which is something you are going to need to look out for.
But this problem can be fixed by changing the consistency of your own ink depending on what you put in it. So the more water you put inside acrylic paint the thinner it is going to be.
You can also create your own types of colors without having to buy expensive acrylic inks, which is a nice touch.
NEGATIVES
Now if you just found that perfect ink that you can use with your favorite dip pen or all of your dip pens and now you are wanting to make your own with the same consistency, well you are going to have a rough time.
A lot of times it takes a lot of testing between how much water you put into your paint, but it is still totally possible. If you are really wanting to found the “perfect consistency” then it is going to take time.
How To Make Calligraphy Ink With Acrylic Paint
All of the ink that we are going to making today is going to be made with water and mixing it with paint.
MATERIALS
- Acrylic Paint
Any type of craft paint that you have at home should be just fine.
- A small container
The container is if you are keeping it in a container.
- Plastic bag or Palet
This is if you are making your ink on the spot and not keeping it in a container
- A paintbrush or something to mix with
- Water
STEP 1
The first thing is you are going to want to decide if you are just going to be making ink on the spot whenever you are going to do calligraphy, or if you are going to be storing it in a container.
Depending on what you are going to do take out your palet/plastic bag or your container.
This is just your personal preference.
STEP 2
Now you are going to take out your acrylic paint and squirt some inside your container or on top of your plastic bag/pallet.
Depending on how much you squirt out depends on how much you are going to be using. If you are going to be storing it then you should squirt quite a bit out.
Now if you are just making it for that session, I recommend starting with small amounts, because you don’t want to make too much ink that you are not going to use.
STEP 3
Now you are going to want to start mixing some water into your acrylic paint. The amount of water that you put into your acrylic paint depends on how much paint you have, and if you are putting it into a container.
I recommend starting with small amounts of water. For me, I usually use a plastic bag for making the ink so I simply just dip my brush into water and start mixing it into the acrylic paint.
STEP 4
Continue mixing in a small amount of water at a time. I recommend after you think that the consistency looks good try it out with your dip pen.
If you notice that the ink is not flowing this might mean that it is too thick for your calligraphy nib. So now you are going to want to add some more water to your ink.
If you are instead noticing that you are getting a lot of big ink blots or that it is too light of a color for you. You can then add some more paint.
How To Make Calligraphy Ink With Guache
This is actually almost the exact same process as what I have explained in the above section for doing calligraphy with acrylic paint. The only difference is that Guache has a different consistency than acrylic paint.
So depending on the type of nib that you are using you might not even have to mix guache with a lot of water to do calligraphy with it. I recommend trying it out with just using regular guache and if it is too thick for your nib you know that you are going to have to add more water.
MATERIALS
- Gouache Paint
No specific brand of paint needed
- Plastic bag/pallet
Recommended if you are not using gouach in a tube.
- Small container
This is only needed if you are storing the ink
- A paintbrush or something to mix with
STEP 1
So you are going to take out either your plastic bag/pallet or your container and put some gouache paint in there.
If you are using the ink just for that time only do a little amount, if you are storing it in a container then add some more paint.
STEP 2
No slowly start adding small amounts of water to your mixture. The more water that you put the thinner the ink is going to get.
Make sure you add water in small amounts so that you are able to get a good consistency.
STEP 3
After adding water and you think you got the right consistency try it out with your dip pen.
If you notice that it is too runny and the ink is just coming off of the nib then you are going to want to add more paint to the ink. Now if the ink is clogging your nib and you can not draw smoothly then you should add some more water to the ink.
How To Make Calligraphy Ink With Watercolor
I enjoy using watercolor as calligraphy ink since it is something that I can quickly make and instantly put it into my dip pen. This is a similar but a different process because usually watercolor that has been mixed with water can not be stored, unless you are using watercolor in tubes.
So this is great if you are going somewhere and want to be able to bring ink with you, without having a big mess.
MATERIALS
- Watercolor Palet
Any type of watercolor is fine for this tutorial
- Brush pens
If you do not want to use watercolor you can also use brush pens or any water-based marker
- Plastic bag or Palet
- Paintbrush or something to mix the paint
TUTORIAL
This is going to be the simplest tutorial out of the three because you can simply just use the watercolor and you don’t really have to do any mixing.
So you are simply going to put you brush in water and grab some watercolor onto your palet or plastic bag. If you are using a brush pen just start writing all over the plastic bag.
Now you are going to grab some water onto your brush and mix it with the watercolor that you have on top of the palet/plastic bag.
Essentially you are done but I am going to be showing you how you can apply this onto your dip pen.
How To Use The Ink
If you are storing the ink in a small container you would use the ink the same way by just dipping your dip pen into the ink bottle. If you don’t know how to do this you can check out my tutorial about it here.
Now if you using watercolor as your calligraphy ink or you are not storing your ink inside a container here is what you can do.
Instead of dipping, your pen into something you are going to need a paintbrush. You are going to face the nib away from you, put some paint onto the paintbrush and start dabbing the paint onto the nib.
This will lead to the nib to be filled with ink. If you notice that it is too much you can simply wipe some off or shake the dip pen nicely.
Final Thoughts
You have all officially learned some simple ways that you can make your own calligraphy ink at home and a more affordable option.
If you have any more questions about calligraphy or what I talked about in this article feel free to comment.