My Permanent Grey Inks

When I create my sketches, I typically start out with a pencil sketch. This helps me outline my shapes and also helps me with placement and location of my objects on my paper. When I’m satisfied with the look of my sketches, I will typically go over my pencil lines with a permanent ink like Platinum Carbon ink. Platinum Carbon is a black ink color that does not budge or move when I apply my ink washes or watercolor paints over it.

Late last year, I found that the black ink color I use is just a bit too dark or bold for my sketching style. Especially, when I apply light color washes to my sketches.

I was on a mission to find a good permanent grey ink color.

I started looking in my ink collection cabinet and found I had a bottle of Document Grey ink that I purchased in 2019. While I was researching online I found a newer (to me) Urban Grey color. I was trying to do an online comparison between the two colors and I could see they were different and I was curious by how much.

I went ahead and ordered Urban Grey. Appropriately named, it mostly reminded me of creating urban sketches with this color. I assumed lots of urban sketchers use this ink color. I had a hard time finding it in stock.

Once I received my new bottle of ink, I could see the difference between the two DeAtramentis Document Ink bottles. The label on the Urban Grey bottle portrayed it as a lighter grey color.

I could not wait to create my inky swatches. My swatches also show a difference between the two grey ink colors. The following picture reminds me of a monochromatic photo. I should have placed a bright red fountain pen for a pop of color in my photo shoot.

Urban Grey appears to be a softer and slightly lighter grey color.

I originally purchased my bottle of Grey for it’s lovely medium neutral grey color.

I would consider Urban Grey to be a light neutral gray color. From the writing on my swatch card, it’s definitely a readable ink color. It would also work nicely for writing descriptions and documentation in my art journal where I would not want it to compete with my sketches.

So, which color do I like best? I like them both for different reasons. I’m still working on test sketches and hope to show my fellow readers some sample sketches using the two colors. Stay tuned!

Inks: DeAtramentis Document Inks in Grey and Urban Grey