Sta.sh
The Noodler's ink line provides great fountain pen inks with a dizzying array of colors, creative labels, and some "bulletproof" inks. "Bulletproof" is used to describe a Noodler's fountain pen ink that resists bleaches, alcohols, solvents, UV light, and other ink removers. The purpose is to have an ink that can withstand forgery attempts, so artists seeking a waterproof fountain pen ink are sometimes surprised and disappointed to find that the ink touted as "waterproof once permitted to dry upon cellulose paper" smears when wetted. The issue here is the two different concepts of "waterproof."
In the way that Noodler's uses it when describing the ink, "waterproof" mean that the ink cannot be removed from the paper by water. An artist's definition of "waterproof" says that the ink should not be affected at all by water, including that it should not smear, smudge, or bleed when wetted. With normal application, a Noodler's "bulletproof" ink is not "waterproof" by the artist's definition. An artist who inks a drawing with a Noodler's "bulletproof" ink and then paints with watercolors (or other washes) might experience smearing or streaking of the ink.
The reason for this is that the ink that directly touches the paper does bond and is "bulletproof" and waterproof, but there is more ink that sits on top of that bonded ink. Those layers of unbound ink are free to wash off with any applied water. So, the bonded ink stays on the paper, but the unbound ink smears or streaks.
An artist wishing to ink a painting with a Noodler's "bulletproof" ink could first ink the drawing, let the ink fully dry, and then rinse the paper before painting. This would remove the excess ink that would smear and leave the bonded ink drawing. Unfortunately, this technique is not always practical, particularly in the case of watercolor sketchbooks. Another workaround may be to dilute the ink sufficiently so that there all ink applied to the page can adhere to the page. The key drawback with this solution is that finding the right water-ink mix to make this work might be difficult.
If you use Noodler's "bulletproof" inks with your washes or paintings, then please share how you work with the ink.
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