Schmincke gum arabic

Bottle (60 ml) of gum arabic with air tight cap.

Gum arabic is made from the sap of the acacia tree (Senegal). There are different ways to use gum arabic for calligraphy inks.

• Improves viscosity: add a few drops to your ink to thicken it, reducing bleeding. Can be helpful if trying to use fountain pen ink which is generally very thin.

It can be very useful to add gum arabic to ink when doing copperplate calligraphy. It often happens with many fountain pen inks that the thick strokes split in two halves, leaving a white space at the centre. To avoid this, add some gum arabic. The ink for thick strokes will last longer and the thins will be very sharp and neat.

• Bonding agent: mix with gouache or powder pigments so that the ink doesn't wipe away after the water evaporates.

Adding too much gum arabic to ink will cause it to dry with shiny patches, so add only a few drops in the ink and make a writing test before you keep adding.