Ink wash experiments

Ink wash, 6X8

For Christmas I received a bottle of Private Reserve Ink in Midnight Blues. It's for fountain pens and is great for washes. I just found that out. It's very dark for writing, but add a little water and it lightens into a rich blue. Using a brush pen filled with water I started experimenting yesterday. So many plein air sketchers talk about using ink washes, I had to figure out how to do it.

I recently found a set of Winsor & Newton inks on the bargain shelf at Michaels (someone had stolen the black) at a greatly reduced price. It's a set of eight, well seven, but I already have black. Now I look forward to trying this with them. I still want to continue drawing in them, now I want to try adding a little water with the brush pen to see what happens.

This was a quick experiment with Mont Blonc's Toffee ink. It writes and draws as a rich dark brown, but with the brush pen it attenuates to a redder color. It was wonderful to see what happens as you play with it and smoosh it around to see what it does.

I went back to one of my current sketch books in which I had drawings with this same ink and just touched in a little water. Wow. Ok some did NOT look better for it, but it was "wicked brilliant" what it did to some. It seems to work best to soften shadows, but leave the outlines as much as possible.
Those pictures are not posted because it was light weight sketch paper and is now ruffly from the water. I wish I knew of a hard bound sketch book with heavier paper that could stand a bit of water. Not quite 140lb paper, but something heavier than in the "Reflections" books I have. They are good for sketching and drawing, as long as you don't get too much ink on the page or it will soak through. Yes, it's that light. Pentel and Tombow seem to do alright, and the Rapidograph. But I have to be careful with fountain pens, anything that can let a lot of ink flow.

Can anyone suggest one? I prefer hard bound, but that may have to change.