Pen yellows?

[ensoul]

I have a question maybe one of you can answer. I use regular black Bic pens a lot. Sometimes, after a month or so, parts of the drawing will start yellowing, especially where there are midtones. This happens on different types of paper and on paper that hasn't been sitting in the sun or been touched by oily hands a lot, so I don't know what's causing it. Does this happen to anyone else, and is there any way to prevent it?

[Chaska Cartagena]

I can't really answer your question but I think that there is an answer somewhere in the forum. If you want I research in the french part and I Tell you!

[ensoul]

That would be great, thank you.

[Pastel]

For the moment I have not had this trouble I hope someone can answer your question!

[Chaska Cartagena]

I found an answer in the forum. Juha, a member of the forum says that it is possible to keep color intact with the varnish UV anti. I did not try but maybe that in your town you can find this product.

[Allan]

Yes, the UV varnish will protect your drawing from the sun but if it's get yellow even without the sun, I don't know what to do !! It can be the quality of your pen !

[ensoul]

Aw! Well, thanks for the help.. maybe I'll try it anyway.

[matt scarlett]

Hey Allan Matt Scarlett here. Finally made it to your forum. This is better than communicating via youtube.

To further the conversation we've been having, the word from everyone I spoke to today is that pen ink is an industry standard ink, whether it's a Bic pen, Cross, Parker or a porsche deisgn pen.

BTW I must say that my Black Bic pen drawings are starting to trun yellow which is funny becasue for the most part, they've been in my A1 folder??

I've taken to drawing a few samples on the two types of paper I use ... Seawhite acid-free cartridge paper and Bristol board. I've put the samples on the windowsill and i'm going to wait and see what happens.

My old tutor advised me to buy/try archval pens, and so i've ordered one from ebay. I thought i'd try a 'Rollerball pen' and a Lamy pen (cheapest Lamy I could find) i need a pen that .... flows better. Bics tend to stick ... although the worst pens for sticking are the Papermate pens that i bought from Staples, but that's a topic for anther time.

As for the ink and yellowing.... there is the specail ink that's use for registry offices ... to sign wedding forms etc. Now, I spoke to a man about that had a pot of this ink, but as i found out today it's not available in ballpoint pen form

Allan, you've advise me to use varnish that's used on acrylic paint ... which might be interesting. I thought of spraying to with fixative, but my tutor said that would make it worse.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=536&start=10#p4683

the thing is, I've pre-sold a drawing .. for £500 with a promise of repeat business. That £500 is family rates, I've been told to sell for a lot more than that .. and the custmer is my step sister. So you see why i'm so anxious. I've spent over 130 on a previous drawing, but both were spoiled by inconsistant Bic pens that wanted to change tone half way through each picture, so i had to scrap them..... and then they started to turn yellow. Lucky i didn't sell it to the customer.

[matt scarlett]

BTW I have to add that I use a lamp with a daylight bulb ... i don't because i have to do the majority of my work at night .. and i don't think the daylight bulb helps.

day light bulb on left ... the image is on a 5mm clear acrylkic sheet with light underneath ... it's a makeshift lightbox.

[Allan]

In this forum, we use a lote BIC® and Reynolds® ballpoint pen cause they are easy to buy on the supermarket in france and they comes with 10 differents colors.

But archival ink pen are very best if you draw with black or blue !

here is a list of such pen :
viewtopic.php?f=56&t=607