I sort of knew that a broad edged nib wouldn't be the best of tools to write with on this Mulberry tissue. Sure enough, even with a light touch the corner of the nib tore the tissue.... possibly the thin consistency of ink allowed the paper to get over wet, thus tearing.
But... a finer nib was ok (just ok, not great!), & slightly better with larger letters. This was using walnut ink. The brush stroke felt wonderful, but this was just a little sample of paper so 1 mark was all I gave myself.
Fine liner pens surprised me... they were excellent. I expected pastels to take well, but they 'took' much more strongly than anticipated... the tissue seems to hold the particles of chalk pastel, resulting in strong colour from a small amount.
Gouache (purple) & watercolour (pink) both worked better with a 'dryer' consistency... anything too wet just soaked away... the watercolour faded even more as it dried. These were applied with a brush... I haven't tried them yet with a nib of any description. I was working with absorbent kitchen paper underneath, but perhaps felt would be a better option to soak away excess moisture.
Ballpoint pen was wonderful! Hard pencils not visible at all, but 3B starts to show.... charcoal pencils worked great.
So.... that's my preliminary tests done, straight onto plain mulberry. Every surface is 'writable' to some extent... we just have to tweak things until something works. The variables are; the tools, the medium & surface treatments. Adjusting these & trying different combinations can lead to really sharp writing on quite hostile surfaces. I'm not finished with this stuff yet!
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