Indian ink (or India ink in American English) is a simple black ink once widely used for writing and printing, and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comics.

Early treatises on the arts refer to black carbon ink that was prepared by the ancient Chinese and Egyptians. The basis of the ink was a black carbon pigment in an aqueous adhesive or binding medium. Sometime before the 12th century, Eraclius, in his De Coloribus et Artibus Romanorum, presented a set of directions for making several types of carbon inks, including one similar to the Indian ink of China, made from the soot of burning resin or wood. Different types of wood will create different-colored inks. In an English volume on handwriting of 1581, Theophilus presented a recipe for a carbon ink:

To make Inke in haste.

In hast, for a shift when ye have a great neede,

Take woll, or wollen to stand you in steede,

Which burnt in the fyre, the powder beate small:

With vinegar, or water make Inke withall.

As the recipe shows, no binder material is necessary: the carbon molecules are in colloidal suspension and form a waterproof layer after drying; often waterproof shellac is added though.

Indian ink replaced the previously widespread Iron-gall nut ink in the opening years of the 20th century.

Caution: Indian ink is usually not suitable for fountain pens: it will readily clog the pen. An exception to this is Pelikan Fount India, which does not contain shellac.

See also: pen and ink.

Indian ink can also be used for home made tattoos, by drawing on the preferred design and then stabbing over the ink with a sharp sewing pin.

History

The Chinese invented and perfected Indian ink. Originally designed for blacking the surfaces of raised stone-carved hieroglyphics, the ink was a mixture of soot from pine smoke and lamp oil mixed with the gelatin of donkey skin and musk. The ink invented by the Chinese philosopher, Tien-Lcheu (2697 B.C.), became common by the year 1200 B.C.

See also

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• Ink and wash painting (Sumi-e)

Online references

Inks

Tinta china | Encre de Chine | Inchiostro cinese | Oost-Indische inkt | Mực tầu