Monday, September 25, 2006

The Mystery of the Sharpie Revealed

Alright, well maybe somebody else has already figured this one out, but here is my best stab at it. Lately I have been reading Gabor Peterdi's truly masterfull book on printmaking. In it he mentions using india ink directly on plates to serve as a resist. My guess is that they use india ink in sharpies, and what is india ink (although it's actually chinese, damn imprecise Victorians)? If I am not mistaken one of the traditional main ingrediants of india ink is lampblack, which seems like it would be able to block acid, and also to state the obvious yet again lampblack is the pigment that makes the ink black so it would stand to reason that the red and orange sharpies would not hold up.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

sure you will figure it out...let me know when you do

phantompanther said...

I used a black sharpie all last semester-- that color holds for at least 20 hours in the acid-- maybe a few touch ups but you know how long I like to leave my plates in the awsome acid!! it worked for me, that's all I gotta say

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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