[0:00]Hey, how's it going? It's Nick here. And if you're like me, and your monkey brain likes the nice and shiny of gold, and you wish you could have gold everything,
[0:11]like these golden scissors, uh my these golden pencils, this golden stapler, golden razor blade,
[0:19]golden buttons, you probably thought about making a print with some gold in it.
[0:25]If you're also like me, the first gold ink you bought, you might have been a little bit disappointed.
[0:30]It just kind of looked like a a muted bronze with a little bit of reflectiveness.
[0:36]And so after I got my first disappointment, I turned to Google, and I looked up, you know, who has the best gold ink?
[0:44]And I saw some recommendations, and I bought those, and it wasn't much better.
[0:48]Uh, so hopefully, this will save you some money, but it's finally time to put them head to head and see who has the best gold ink.
[0:56]So a few disclaimers before we start, I bought all of my inks with my own money.
[1:01]Uh, nobody paid me anything for their inks. I got no free samples. Uh, it's all out of my own pocket.
[1:06]And then secondly, I wanted to get kind of traditional oil-based relief inks because that's mostly what I do.
[1:13]Uh, but I do have a few exceptions of doing some water soluble inks in there, but we're not going to mess with things like screen printing inks, uh and stuff like that.
[1:21]Thirdly, I wanted to talk about, you know, the screens that we're looking at it on.
[1:25]Uh, I noticed while I was recording it that on my phone, when I was looking at it through,
[1:31]it was a lot more orangey, vibrant, like a beautiful, like golden color that I would love to have on my, like prints.
[1:40]But in reality, it wasn't that vibrant. And so I'm going to try and uh edit this to make it look as close to real life as possible.
[1:52]But the default setting on my camera definitely makes it look more lustrous than it actually was.
[1:57]And so, if you've ever seen someone else posting a video on Instagram of their, you know, gold ink, and it looks, wow, it's so beautiful, that's so golden, uh it might just be an effect of the camera.
[2:05]Because I found that it had a tendency to want to make it more orangey and vibrant. I shot this on my Sony Xperia 1 Mark II phone,
[2:12]uh that has like 10-bit color in it. And I'm editing this video on an LG C10 OLED TV.
[2:19]And so, hopefully, I can get these colors as close as possible.
[2:22]Uh fifth disclaimer, I did not modify any of these inks.
[2:27]I think a lot of the inks, you know, you can modify any of the inks to make them perfect for relief. Uh but I wanted to use them straight out of the jar to kind of get a better baseline for it.
[2:37]Uh but of course, if you want better results to tailor it towards your style of printing, you can always modify your inks and make them even better, uh than when they come out of the can.
[2:44]And my last disclaimer is that just because some of these inks, uh aren't good, that doesn't mean that the brand itself doesn't produce good ink.
[2:53]I know that some of the ones here have some not so great gold ink, but, you know, their other inks, I think, like, you know, some of the best.
[3:04]And so, this isn't really indicative of the brand's overall ink.
[3:07]So, without out of the way, I'm going to talk about the testing methodology that I'm about to use.
[3:12]And so here's a block of linoleum. I mounted it myself. I sanded it smooth to 1,000 grit, and so that's the best chance for the ink to release.
[3:20]And it's got some traditional carving up here. And we've got some black lines and white areas.
[3:25]We've got some white lines and black areas. You've got this big solid black area at the bottom, and some normal line work up top.
[3:32]And at the bottom, I have this super fine line that would be hard to print for any ink.
[3:38]And so this is probably like the toughest scenario I can come up with for an ink test.
[3:41]Uh, you're going to need your ink to be stiff enough to not fill in the shallow lines or squish around these fine lines.
[3:48]Uh, but it needs to be loose enough that it'll release from these big black areas.
[3:51]And I also have a little Kentol registration in the corner, and that's just going to help me line up paper in between tests.
[3:58]And speaking of paper, we have Arches in black, we have Reevs BFK, and we have Mohawk Superfine.
[4:06]And so the Arches represents the hardest scenario. Your ink's going to have to be really opaque to overcome the black and to overcome the texture of the paper.
[4:14]The Reevs BFK, I feel like is a middle ground of what I expect fine art print makers to use. It's got some texture and a relatively thick body.
[4:22]And the Mohawk Superfine represents a best case scenario. The surface is really smooth and the paper's kind of thin for best pressure transfer.
[4:29]And so each ink is going to get 1/16th of a teaspoon of inks to roll out, and I'm going to use this 3-inch brayer to roll out a slab.
[4:38]And so for the Arches, I'm just going to use what's on the brayer and distribute that out.
[4:44]And then for the BFK, I'm going to go back and forth between the block and the slab.
[4:51]And then because the Mohawk needs the least amount of ink, since it's so smooth, I'm just going to uh do that again without adding any ink in between these runs.
[4:57]And in between changing out the inks, I'm going to clean each block with some mineral spirits, uh very thoroughly, and the brayer.
[5:05]And then I'm going to give it all a light dusting with the talc powder to absorb any latent inks that might be hiding in the cracks.
[5:09]And so, first up, we have the Cranfield Traditional Oil-based Relief Ink, coming in at $19.00, uh but I got free shipping because Blick often gives you free shipping if you spend over a certain amount.
[5:20]And I'd say, this rolls out on the slab nice and easily. It looks pretty opaque, uh but I wouldn't leave it alone for too long.
[5:30]Uh, I would probably say, you know, a bathroom break is kind of cutting it. Your ink's going to start drying out on you.
[5:33]You probably don't leave it alone for maybe more than like 8 or 10 minutes on your slab, or you're going to have to like, you know, recharge your ink. It prints pretty opaque, and it's pretty consistent.
[5:43]Between the Arches, the BFK, and the Mohawk, I think I get pretty solid results all the way around.
[5:51]And it tackled this test with flying colors. As far as the color goes,
[5:56]I would probably say it's it's pretty warm in color, which is what I would prefer.
[6:02]And when I was done with all this testing, the prints on the paper, they were dry to the touch in about 10 minutes.
[6:09]And when I say dry to the touch, I mean, like, I can touch it, and it's not tacky, and I would feel confident just stacking all these pieces of paper and taking them somewhere.
[6:17]But if I tried to, and like smeared my finger across it, it would still smudge. And so, next up, we have the Speedball, uh block and fabric relief printing ink.
[6:27]Uh usually $11.73, but at the time of recording, it was $8.63, and of course, free shipping from Blick.
[6:34]And this rolled out nice and evenly, although it was a little bit tacky after I left it alone, uh towards the end of this test.
[6:42]And this printed uh pretty transparent. This is very noticeable on the black.
[6:46]It couldn't overpower the black paper, and on the uh white papers, it has a bit of transparency in it.
[6:56]And I think that kind of goes into how it shimmers. Uh, and so for this ink, I went ahead and tried to give it a second chance where I added uh a lot more ink to the block.
[7:05]How I think Speedball expected a novice to use this ink. And so I'm going to overinked it, and I printed it again.
[7:11]And here, it's a bit more opaque of a golden color, but still, pretty transparent, but overall, I kind of like the richness of this color.
[7:22]Uh, it's a kind of like a transparent golden yellow, and it's got like a little bit of glitter into it.
[7:28]And this ink was dry to the touch after about 4 minutes. Next up, is this Akua brand ink.
[7:32]Coming in at $9.68. And of course, free shipping from Blick. Uh this is meant for intaglio.
[7:39]And so, uh it rolled out super transparent on the slab, and it dried pretty fast on the slab. It was pretty hard to work with.
[7:49]And when I went to go print it, it was too transparent. Couldn't really see anything from it, although you can kind of see a little bit of glitter from it.
[7:54]And I even tried to give it an extra ink test. Uh, not really much happening there.
[8:00]And I figured I'd give it a test with dampened paper, because maybe, you know, it was meant to be printed with dampened paper, and you can kind of see a little bit more glitter when it's squished into those grooves.
[8:11]Uh but for relief printing, I would not use it for that. Uh the color was nice in the jar, but terrible when rolled out.
[8:19]Uh, maybe this fares better for etching. I mean, it was designed for etching, uh but this isn't an etching test.
[8:24]And after printed, the paper was dry to the touch after about a minute. Next up, we have this Blick brand.
[8:30]Coming in at $14.79, but at the time of recording, it was on sale for $8.84, and of course, that Blick free shipping.
[8:37]And it rolled out a bit transparent, uh but as I kept using it throughout the test, it started drying on my slab.
[8:44]Just like within the span of these like 5 minutes, and it was so tacky on the slab that it actually started pulling ink off of my brayer and back onto the slab.
[8:52]And so it was really hard to work with. The prints themselves, uh rather transparent.
[8:58]But I think the color was okay. It's definitely a bit of a more, uh kind of, I don't know, muted yellow sort of color.
[9:07]Uh it was dry to the touch after about 2 minutes, and it also had this weird effect of making my paper slightly curl.
[9:14]Next up, we have the Charbonnel brand. Uh $22.50 on Amazon.
[9:19]Uh the gold ink version wasn't available on the Blick website. And so, this rolled out pretty transparent and uneven.
[9:28]Uh the ink itself is really loose, uh like all Charbonnel inks usually are.
[9:34]And when I printed them, they were rather transparent and a little bit splotchy. The first one actually worked out not too bad, but subsequent prints, uh ended up pretty splotchy.
[9:44]I even gave it a second chance and tried to add more ink to the slab, uh but it still ended up kind of being splotchy, and I couldn't uh replicate the vibrancy of that first print.
[9:54]And I even tried it with some dampened paper, since it was an etching ink, uh but it didn't quite get that uh vibrancy, and it was still a little bit splotchy.
[10:02]And the print on the paper was dry to the touch in about 5 minutes. Next up, is this Hanco brand.
[10:09]Uh usually $38.92, but on the Blick website, at the time of recording, it was on sale for $29.38.
[10:17]You get this whole can. And the ink rolled out great. It's a bit of a greasy ink, but it's not so loose, uh that it fills in all my lines.
[10:25]Uh and it stays pretty open on the slab. It prints really opaque. The color, it's a bit on the antique gold, uh kind of side.
[10:35]Uh it's a bit of a muted color, but it's very shiny and reflective. And again, very opaque.
[10:40]Ake. And it held up these lines pretty well. The print on paper was dry to the touch in about 22 minutes.
[10:46]So the most open ink so far. Next up, is this Renaissance Graphics Ink.
[10:52]Uh also coming in at $38.92, and I also had to pay $14.59 for shipping.
[10:59]Um but this ink looks very similar to the Hanco ink. Uh rolled out great.
[11:04]Also a very greasy ink, but towards the end of my tests, it started to get a little bit tacky, uh on the slab, but not so much that it was unusable.
[11:11]The prints were opaque, held up the lines really great. It was very shiny and reflective.
[11:18]But I think the color is a bit more like an antique, kind of muted gold. Uh really similar to, it's actually really similar to the Hanco gold ink.
[11:27]Uh but this one was dry to the touch uh in about 9 minutes. So I think this one maybe has a bit more drier.
[11:32]And then next up, is this Letterpress Inks gold. And this is actually the first gold ink that I bought.
[11:39]And uh well, Letterpress Inks doesn't really exist anymore, so you can't really get this.
[11:43]But they use the Pantone system to mix this gold, so I assume, uh if you get, you know, gold 873 from other Pantone, uh, you know, suppliers, is going to be pretty similar to this one.
[11:55]And so, this rolled out pretty fine. Uh started drying out on the slab, a little bit towards the end, but not in a tacky way.
[12:02]It's just kind of like a an inactive way. But the prints were very opaque, but the color was really muted.
[12:08]Just kind of like a more, a very antique dark brown, just kind of color. And on the paper, dry to the touch in about 15 minutes.
[12:17]And so, next up, is this Graphic Chemical brand ink. And this was $30.00, and I shared the shipping with that other Renaissance Graphics Ink that I bought.
[12:26]I actually bought this ink from the Renaissance Graphics website, uh more on that later.
[12:31]And this ink came in a tube, and I squeezed some out, and it looked really pretty coming out of the tube.
[12:38]But as I rolled it out, it had no pigment in it. Uh it was super transparent, and I tried to print it, and I got basically nothing.
[12:47]And so, I assumed maybe this was just a really old uh tube of ink.
[12:53]And so I actually, just, you know, giving it a second chance, I squeezed all the ink out of this tube, and I mixed it back together.
[12:59]Tried to reincorporate that pigment, maybe it'll settled at the bottom. And I got a better result, although still super splotchy.
[13:09]But ultimately, this ink was really frustrating to use because after I did the first print, uh my slab was almost already dry, and I couldn't really get any subsequent prints out of it.
[13:20]And I don't know what the point of this coming in a tube like this is if I'm going to have to squeeze it all out anyway, and remix it all.
[13:27]And so that was just kind of a terrible uh user experience. And I figured I'd give Graphic Chemical a third chance.
[13:36]And I actually went to their website, and I inquired if they actually sold, you know, their own branded ink, uh from the website.
[13:42]And they didn't actually have this specific carrot gold anymore, but they had a pale gold that was Graphic Chemical branded.
[13:49]And I tried to buy a sample of it from the website. Uh, and I even emailed to see if I could get some, but uh that was 2 weeks ago.
[13:58]And I have not heard anything back from them. My order, no order confirmation or anything like that. Nothing shipped.
[14:04]And so, I'm not going to keep waiting for Graphic Chemical, uh to send me some ink. And so, they have this pale gold.
[14:10]If you can get it, maybe it's great. If it ever comes in, I'll post an update about it in the comments below, but as of this recording, I couldn't get Graphic Chemical Pale Gold.
[14:19]Next up, is the Schmincke. I bought this one from Blick, and this is actually the first of the water-based inks.
[14:26]It looks pretty fancy. Comes in at a whopping $17.02 for this tiny little tube.
[14:33]Uh but it's a very pretty color coming out of the tube, and it rolled out a really nice and brilliant rich gold color.
[14:40]I love this color. Uh but this ink, it it dried as soon as I rolled it out onto the block.
[14:46]Like, the block dried before I could print it. And so, it resulted in this like almost nothing print.
[14:55]Uh it was super splotchy, and I even gave it, uh I mean, I just added more ink to the slab.
[15:00]I couldn't even let it play ball on the field that the other prints played ball on, uh because it was just completely dry.
[15:07]Uh and even with excessive amounts of ink, it kept drying and printing really splotchy. Uh so, uh didn't work out.
[15:18]And of course, prints were dry instantly as it came out of the press. And so, for this ink, I actually couldn't clean it with mineral spirits. It just refused.
[15:23]And so, I ended up cleaning it with soap and water and the 409 spray. Next up, is this Essdee brand.
[15:27]Uh this is actually pretty new. I've never heard of this ink before. Uh it's actually another water-based ink.
[15:32]And it comes in at $10.99. You get a pretty good amount of ink in here. And it rolled out surprisingly smooth.
[15:40]And it stayed pretty open for a water-based ink. Uh it didn't have any problems by the end of the test, uh, you know, getting tacky or drying up or anything like that.
[15:49]Although, it prints really transparently. And so, on this black paper, uh it didn't have a chance for that.
[15:56]Uh but printing on white paper actually turned out pretty well. But it's definitely more like a warm yellow gold color, and it's got a little bit of glitter in it.
[16:03]Uh so, not quite like a gold ink, but still a very glittery gold. And uh this ink was also pretty much dry to the touch after it came out of the press, instantly.
[16:13]And that concludes the inks that I could get in the US uh pretty easily.
[16:18]Uh but on my Instagram feed, I did see this new ink brand that I've never heard of before, uh Hawthorn Printmaker's.
[16:26]Uh and they make print making inks and print making supplies over in the UK. And uh their gold ink caught my attention, and so I thought I'd give it a try.
[16:34]And so, this Hawthorn Light Gold comes in at 17 pounds, uh which is about $21.00 US, and between this one and the other gold, I ended up paying, uh 34 pounds, or $42.00 to get this to be shipped to the US.
[16:50]And it shipped surprisingly fast. Uh, I think I got it, I placed the order, and I got the ink in like a week.
[16:56]Uh so, that was really fast. I didn't expect that. Uh one note, though, this ink is a bit leaking from the lid.
[17:02]Uh maybe they didn't tape this one. Uh my other inks came taped, and so they might have just forgotten for this one. Side to side.
[17:09]Uh 2 weeks later, uh the ink still drips from it. I think just from these threaded, uh rock or the threads up here, uh it's just just still dripping down.
[17:21]And so, uh probably put a piece of paper underneath these jars, if you're going to get them. And so, these inks come in two jars.
[17:26]One for the body and the binder, and the other one is the pigment. And so, the idea here is that you mix them up when you need them.
[17:33]Because, uh like the other inks, and all gold metallic inks, they skin really fast if you have them in a jar.
[17:40]Supposedly, you're supposed to mix them in a 1:1 ratio. And so, I did it a 1/16th of a teaspoon for both of them to make a big pile, and then I took from that pile.
[17:49]Uh more thoughts on that later, at the end, when I give it a second chance. And so, I printed these.
[17:54]And it prints very opaque, but subsequent prints did not carry very much ink. Uh it's almost like, uh I don't know, it became inactive after a while.
[18:05]But it wasn't like dry. It was a little bit weird. Uh but the color for this Hawthorn Light Gold, it's very bright and very warm.
[18:12]Uh it's kind of, I want to say like, it's a little bit brassy, but I think this is the most like vibrant and, you know, reflective of the gold so far.
[18:19]And so, after printing this, uh the inks were dry to the touch after about 15 minutes. And so, next up, we're using the Hawthorn Medium Gold.
[18:27]Uh also coming in at 17 pounds, or $21.00 US, and the shipping cost was shared between the inks.
[18:34]And I'm also mixed this one at a 1:1 ratio, uh 1/16th of a teaspoon from both, and then taking from that pile.
[18:41]And this one also printed very opaque, and it's color is a lot more like the Cranfield color. It's got this nice warm, semi-coppery, kind of gold.
[18:49]And again, the subsequent prints didn't carry very much ink. And so I had to give this one a second chance later.
[18:54]But it didn't play ball on the same field as the other prints. And this one again was dry to the touch after about 15 minutes.
[19:02]Uh I thought it was a little bit weird. But a week later, I decided to give it another go. Uh I think that I didn't have enough of the binder with it.
[19:09]Even though I did 1:1, I felt like it just didn't have enough binder to carry the pigment because the pigment was still on the slab.
[19:18]But I think it just wasn't rolling up very well. This time, I'm mixing two parts of the varnish to one part of the pigment.
[19:26]And this worked much better. Uh much more like a traditional ink. And so here I am printing it, just like I would print like a normal ink.
[19:35]And this ratio works much better. You can see these prints. They're very opaque. This is definitely like, uh the most opaque, uh the most pigment-rich ones uh out of the bench so far.
[19:46]I was worried about it not keeping very well, but I took this ink, and I wrapped it in some saran wrap.
[19:54]And it seemed to be fine, uh a few days later when I tried to use it again. And so maybe you can premix uh a decent-sized batch and just kind of keep it for, you know, the next few prints and just kind of re-keeping them.
[20:07]Uh who knows? And so, before I go and crown my inks champions, I just want to talk about a few trends that I noticed and some tips to kind of get the most out of your gold inks.
[20:17]So, I wanted to start this off by saying, if you saw one of the inks that you liked, but it's an oil-based ink, and you don't work with oil-based inks.
[20:25]You're primarily a water-based ink person, and you're not so sure about the transition to oil-based inks because you might have heard that you need toxic solvents to clean up oil-based inks.
[20:34]Uh, I want to say that's not true. You can actually clean up pretty much any traditional oil-based relief ink with just some vegetable oil and a degreasing spray.
[20:44]And so, here I'm using 409, but people have used a little bit of Dawn dish soap and water, or a diluted solution of Simple Green.
[20:51]And so, what I'm doing here is just kind of pouring out a little bit of vegetable oil, rolling the brayer around in it to kind of get it saturated and soaking into it.
[20:59]And then I'm going to soak this rag with some vegetable oil, and start scrubbing away at it.
[21:04]And yes, it's going to be slower than just using solvents, but it's nice to have alternatives.
[21:10]And so, once you've scrubbed away all the ink off the brayer and the slab, go ahead and spray on some 409 to degrease it.
[21:16]And then spray some 409 onto the rag and degrease the brayer. You kind of want to avoid spraying it directly onto the brayer, and then wipe it squeaky clean.
[21:25]And next, I wanted to talk about smooth versus textured paper. Uh, if you're the smoother your paper, the more reflective and more vibrant that your print is going to be.
[21:35]Uh the texture of the paper just kind of stops the reflectiveness of it. And of course, it doesn't feel as vibrant. It's a bit more dull.
[21:42]And then, uh one that's often talked about is double printing. And so, that'd be printing your block, and then printing on top of it again.
[21:52]And yes, it will give you more pigment. It will also kind of smooth out the texture of the paper, and it will result into a more vibrant print.
[22:01]But that comes at the cost of potentially, uh if your registration's not perfect, you're going to get a bit of a double drop effect.
[22:07]Or some of your fine lines might be shifted a little bit. And so, that carries its own risks.
[22:14]Printing other under colors. And so, printing gold first, and then printing other colors on top of it.
[22:21]Uh, like with other inks, here I have this little uh experimented astronaut. It has the Cranfield gold printed underneath of it.
[22:29]And then I printed some Gamblin, uh Tumbux black on top of it, and the part, we can see in the astronaut's kind of visor.
[22:36]Uh it's very, the black is really reflective in those spots that have the gold under base.
[22:41]And so, you can print on top of them, but know that it will probably make, uh your top layers of a bit more shiny.
[22:50]Uh but that's just kind of printing with inks in general. One other cool thing I noticed in this reduction print, when you print the gold inks on top of other inks.
[22:57]And so, it can't really soak into the paper as well. You get this really rich and vibrant, kind of gold look to it.
[23:04]Uh it all, in person, it really kind of looks like gold foil onto this paper. Uh it's so beautiful.
[23:11]And so, here's a quick little drawdown test that I did, uh at the start of all this. And here, it really kind of illustrates the opacities and the reflectiveness of the ink.
[23:23]Uh but I didn't want to show this at the beginning because that kind of would have spoiled uh the end result.
[23:27]But hopefully, by looking at this, you can kind of, uh see more of how the colors compared to each other, all at once.
[23:36]And there's kind of overall opacity and reflectiveness. TLDDR. Let's get down to my kind of general recommendations.
[23:43]And so, I would generally recommend Cranfield, Speedball, Hanco, Renaissance Graphics, Essdee, and Hawthorn's inks.
[23:53]I think they all work pretty well, and I think you're going to have a great time with it.
[23:59]And your color choice, you know, which one you get, kind of depends on what color that you want to get.
[24:04]What I would definitely recommend saying away from is the Blick brand and the Graphic Chemical brand, and the Schmincke.
[24:12]Uh just because those dried up so fast, I think you're going to be struggling really hard. Even though the colors were nice, I think it was just such a struggle to use them that it wasn't fun to print.
[24:21]And on top of that, I would not recommend the Charbonnel or Akua brands because they were so transparent and splotchy.
[24:28]I think this relief test is really didn't suit them, and I would say don't get those if you're planning on doing relief prints with them.
[24:35]Overall, if I just had to make one recommendation, I would probably say the Cranfield Ink is pretty good. It's convenient, easy to use.
[24:44]Uh you can just get a can, squeeze out some ink, and start printing with it. Uh it's pretty good workability.
[24:52]And I think the color is a bit more vibrant than some of the muted, uh inks out here.
[24:56]And so, that's just kind of my overall general recommendation. And I would say if you're willing to give it a shot, uh just know you don't have the convenience of just squeezing some ink out of a tube.
[25:09]But the Hawthorn brand, I think the color, it's the most kind of opaque and reflective and the most brilliant.
[25:19]Uh and I like that it was open and workable, but you do have to go with the inconvenience of having to mix up a bunch before you print.
[25:25]Uh so, that convenience might not be worth it. And also those import costs because I live in the US and I just can't get them so easily.
[25:32]But now that I have them, I think that's probably my favorite in terms of color, opacity and reflectiveness. That's probably where I'm going to go for.
[25:40]And so, if you like what I do, uh consider leaving a like, and this will help other people in the future kind of find this video.
[25:47]And if you want to see more weird projects or reviews like this, consider subscribing. It would really help me out. I'm still a small channel, kind of trying to grow.
[25:54]But I want to provide quality content for the people of printmakers because it, you know, there's not much resources out there on the internet yet.
[25:59]And so I really kind of want to jump start and get some really nice resources out to everybody. And if you want to support me, and so I can do some nice more expensive projects like this.
[26:08]In the future, uh you can consider going to my website and maybe picking yourself up a print.
[26:14]Uh they're all handmade by me, and that would really, you know, just kind of go a long ways in just kind of supporting me in general.
[26:23]So yeah, thanks for watching. I'll see you all next time.
[26:31]Thank you for sticking around to the end.
