It is, perhaps, more difficult to come by a thoroughly reliable ink than to be exactly suited with papers and pens; and yet greater attention has been given by manufacturers to inks than to those other necessaries.

You can, often with advantage, use a writing pen; but no one, however clever he may be, can make a satisfactory drawing for reproduction with the aid of writing-inks. They are either not black enough, or else are too fluid, so that it is impossible to run lines close together, or to cross-hatch without the ink running the lines into one another. It may, perhaps, be remarked that this is an obvious error, since many of Keene’s most delightful drawings and studies were made in writing-inks—black, blue-black, or diluted, or even in red, and violet, and blue inks. Certainly Keene was a great man in whatever medium he used, but he was not accustomed to be reproduced in any other way than by so-called fac-simile wood engraving. In this way all his greynesses and faint lines could have their relative values translated, but even in the cleverest surface-printing processes his work could not be adequately reproduced.

Stephens’s ebony stain is perhaps the most widely used ink at this time. It is not made for the purpose of drawing, being a stain for wood; but its merits for pen-drawing have been known for some considerable time. It is certainly the best, cheapest, and least troublesome medium in the market. It is, when not diluted, an intensely black liquid with an appreciable body, but not too thick to flow freely. It dries with a certain but not very obtrusive glaze, which process-engravers at one time objected to most strongly, because they wanted something to object to on principle; but they have at length become tired of remonstrating, and really there was never any objection to the stain upon that score. It flows readily from the pen, and when drying upon the nib is not gummy nor in any way adhesive, but powders easily—avoiding the abomination of a pen clogged with a sticky mess of half-dry mud, characteristic of the use of Indian ink. Ebony stain is sold in substantial stone bottles, and so does not readily become thick; but when, owing to any cause, it does not run freely enough, a sparing dilution with water restores its fluid properties. Diluted too often or too freely, it becomes of a decided purple-brown tint; but as a good-sized bottle costs only sixpence, and holds enough to last a year, it need not be repeatedly diluted on the score of its cost. It is not a fixed ink, and readily smudges when washed over or spotted with water—so cannot be used in combination with water-colour or flat-washes. Neither can Chinese white be used upon a drawing made in Ebony stain. These are disadvantages that would tell against its use by illustrators who make many alterations upon their work, or who paint in lights on a pen-drawing with body-colour; but for pure pen-drawing, and for straight-away journalistic work, it is invaluable.

Indian ink is the traditional medium. It has the advantage of fixity; lines drawn with it, when once dry, will not smudge when washed over, and, at most, they give but a very slight grey or brown tint to the paper. Indian ink can be bought in sticks and ground with water in a saucer; but there seems to be no reason for any one to go to this trouble, as liquid Indian inks are to be bought in bottles from Messrs. Reeves. The best Indian ink, when freshly ground, gives a fine black line that dries with that bogey of the process-man, a glaze; but lampblack is of a more intense blackness, and dries with a dull surface. Lampblack is easily soluble, and therefore has not the stability of good Indian ink to recommend it. For ordinary use with the pen, it has too much of the pigmental nature, and is very apt to clog the nib and to cause annoyance and loss of time. Lampblack and Ivory-black are better suited to the brush. Hentschel, of 182, Fleet Street, sells an American preparation called “Whiting’s Process-Drawing Ink,” which professes to have all the virtues that should accompany a drawing-ink. It is very abominable, and has an immediate corrosive effect upon pens. The drawing-materials’ shop in King William Street, Strand, sells “Higgins’ American Drawing Ink,” done up in ingeniously contrived bottles. It is well spoken of.

Encre de Chine Liquide is the best liquid Indian ink sold, and is very largely used by draughtsmen. It can be obtained readily at any good colour-shop. It is far preferable to most of the liquid Indian inks prepared by English houses, which when left standing for a few minutes deposit a sediment, and at best are inadequate concoctions of a greenish-grey colour. Messrs. Reeves and Sons have recently introduced a special ink for pen-drawing, which they call “Artists’ Black.” It is as good as any. It is a liquid ink, sold in shilling bottles.

Mr. Du Maurier uses blue-black writing-ink from an inkstand that is always allowed to stand open and receive dust and become half muddy. He prefers it in this condition. Also he generally works upon HP drawing-paper. It is interesting to know this, but to work in blue-black ink is an amiable eccentricity that might prove disastrous to any one following his example. His work is not reproduced by zincography, but by fac-simile wood engraving. It may be laid down as an inflexible rule, if you are beginning the study of pen-drawing, if your work is for hurried newspaper production, or if you have not the control of the reproduction in your own hands, to draw for line-process in the blackest ink and on the whitest paper.

Many architects and architectural draughtsmen, who are accustomed to exhibit pen-drawings of architecture at the Royal Academy, are accustomed to draw in brown inks. Prout’s Brown is generally used, and gives a very pleasing effect to a drawing. It photographs and reproduces readily, but it must always be borne in mind that, if printed in black ink, the reproduction will inevitably be much heavier. Scarlet inks, and even yellow inks, have been used by draughtsmen for special purposes, and are allowable from the photographic point of view; but blue must not be used, being an actinic colour and impossible to photograph.