One of my favourite things about working with inks is getting to experiment with different surfaces.  Of course, whatever goes under the ink affects how it’s taken up, making for a very different inking experience.

Gouache makes for a nice and smooth inking surface once it’s dry, which makes certain things like feathering easier (I admit, I still don’t know how to do it ‘properly’).  The smooth surface catches all of the tiny variations in line-width in a way that the regular paper I was using did not.  I liken the feeling of inking on this surface to picking up an object that you assumed was far heavier; the object seems to jump right into your hand, or have an energy of its own.