If you are an artist who wants to give painting a break or maybe create a mixed media painting, Skills stock an exclusive range of specialist artist inks to create stunning and unique results. Each range incorporates unique effects into your artwork. We have sets for basic, landscape, monochrome, portrait, or individual colours to allow you to build a palette for your specific requirements.
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens
In many countries, ink drawings have a very long history among artists. Their expressive power, covering properties, resistance to ageing as well as the possibility of combining them with many other painting techniques have always made this medium interesting for artists and graphic designers. Faber-Castell has brought together all of the advantages of drawing in Indian ink in a modern and uncomplicated disposable pen – the PITT artist pen.
The high-quality brush point works both straight and bent without breaking. While the light colours are transparent and, thus, well-suited to varnishing techniques, the dark colours have good covering qualities. PITT artist pens have unsurpassed light-fastness and the individual colours are marked with an asterisk-based code.
Winsor & Newton Drawing Inks
Good, old-fashioned drawing ink from these iconic little bottles. Fast-drying, water resistant and transparent – they can be used with a brush, dip pen or airbrush. Winsor & Newton created 26 colours, including Liquid Indian Ink – a water-based solution of traditional Chinese stick ink. All the colours are intermixable and you can overlay different colours for new effects and shades.
Here are three ways to use this most noble and versatile medium…
MAKE SWEEPING LINES AND BOLD EDGES
Some things can’t be achieved with a modern pen, so if you want strong edges and tapered lines, turn to Winsor & Newton Inks. Try brushes or dip pens for different effects in your drawing, or you might want to indulge in a spot of calligraphy. These inks can even be used for airbrushing, but be sure to thin them first with deionised water.
CREATE LAYERS OF BEAUTIFUL COLOUR
Winsor & Newton are proud to admit their inks are unsurpassed in strength and brilliance of colour. With the exception of Liquid Indian Ink, Gold and Silver, all the inks are fast drying, water-resistant and transparent. That means you can overlay different colours to create texture and depth – think metallic earth tones meeting brilliant blue skies, that sort of thing.
HOW ABOUT A WATER COLOUR EFFECT?
All Winsor & Newton Inks are fully intermixable and since most of them are also mixable with water, you can easily create a water colour effect. Even better, the inks will still provide a strength of colour that you can’t achieve with paint.
Derwent Graphik Line Painters and Line Makers
Graphik Line Painters are a fine line paint pen filled with lightfast, permanent, opaque waterbased paint in 20 colours. The 0.5 Japan nib is robust and delivers a fluid paint line. Dilutes with water so you can create washes and add layers.
Weave the most intricate designs with these cool fine liners. Graphik Line Makers are filled with lightfast water based pigment in 3 colours; Black, Graphite & Sepia. The Japanese nibs offer an impressive range of sizes from super-fine 0.05 to a broad 0.8.
Daler Rowney FW Artists Acrylic Inks
The major development of inks in recent years has been the increasing use of pigments and acrylic resins. The difference between the dye-based inks and the pigmented inks are a slight reduction in colour intensity, but much improved resistance to fading.
FW Artists’ Ink is an acrylic-based, pigmented, water-resistant ink (on most surfaces) in a range of 38 colours, all of which have either a 3 or 4 star rating for permanence. Such a high degree of lightfastness over such a range of fully intermixable colours makes them ideal for use by artists in the production of pictures for permanent display.
Equally, however, colours can be substantially diluted to achieve the most subtle of tones, very similar in character to watercolour. Such washes will dry to a water-resistant film on virtually all surfaces and successive layers of colour can be laid over. FW Artists’ Inks work well through airbrushes and technical pens.
Winsor & Newton Calligraphy Ink
Calligraphy is an historic artform invented as early as c.800 in China. The lettering itself is stunning but the technique can be used to create compelling pictures and storyboards. These inks are made in 18 lightfast colours with carefully chosen pigments to ensure colour brilliance. The 14 blue-capped bottles contain thinner, more transparent inks with a satin finish. They’re suitable for dip-pens, fountain pens, technical pens and airbrushes. There are also four red-capped bottles which are opaque and should be used with a dip-pen or brush. Winsor & Newton Calligraphy Inks have a permanence rating of AA or A but are not waterproof.
Zentangle
The Zentangle Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns.
Almost anyone can use it to create beautiful images. It increases focus and creativity, provides artistic satisfaction along with an increased sense of personal well being. The Zentangle Method is enjoyed all over this world across a wide range of skills, interests and ages.
We believe that life is an art form and that our Zentangle Method is an elegant metaphor for deliberate artistry in life.
Skills Art Materials 