Hi Schin, I really love your blog and artwork! I have bought Dr. Ph, Martin’s bleed proof white because I thought it was time to try something else than black, but I don’t really understand how can you write with such thick ink? It’s almost as thick as acrylic paint! Do you use a thinner on it?

November 7, 2013

Yep, that stuff is amazing but does require dilution with water. I made a mini tutorial below:

The tools you would need is a jar of Dr PH Martin’s bleedproof white, an old brush, some clean water and your pen/nib of choice. The syringe is optional.

When you first uncap the jar, you will find that the paint is really thick! In fact I can turn over the jar and the stuff just doesn’t budge. It definitely needs diluting.

Using your brush or a syringe, just add a little water to the top of the paint. Maybe 10-15 drops or so, don’t fill up the whole thing. You want just enough to last you for a little while.

Now with your old brush, gently stir and mix the water with the top portion of paint to your desired consistency. Don’t go mixing up the whole jar now, just the top layer. If it feels too thick, add a little more water. If it feels too watery, simply mix a little more. You kind of want the consistency of a thick soup, it should be able to flow from the nib freely yet not too watery where it will just be like water. Over time, you may need to add more water as needed as the stuff may dry up.

Using your brush, paint on the white to your nib. Make sure to fill up the eye of the nib. I find that the thickness of the white does not allow for straight on dipping from the jar, and it may be a little annoying to have to repaint the nib so often. I have not found a better way, though.

And that’s it! The white paint dries very quickly so you don’t want to stall, you should start writing immediately right after painting it on. If it starts to give trouble, I find that a quick dip of the loaded nib into clean water does the trick. Another tip is to use a chopstick holder to keep your paint and brush away from the table.

Hope this helps!