Boku-Undo Sumi Ink Watercolor Paints — Shadow Black (6 Colors)

Boku-Undo Sumi Ink Watercolor Paints in Shadow Black is a six-pan Japanese watercolor set built on traditional sumi ink, made in Nara by a sumi manufacturer founded in 1805. Every color reads as black at full strength but reveals a different undertone (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, or brown) the moment it meets water.

The set holds six dry pans: Reddish Black, Yellowish Black, Greenish Black, Bluish Black, Purplish Black, and Brownish Black. The pans sit flush in a slim cardboard tray and re-wet instantly when touched with a wet brush, so there is no grinding step and no extra setup.

At full strength, every color in this set falls almost to true black, but the difference between, say, Reddish Black and Bluish Black emerges the moment water enters the pan. Diluted, the colors pull apart into soft, colored washes that betray their hidden hue. The pans combine traditional sumi soot with colored pigments and gum arabic, behaving like a modern watercolor while keeping the depth and matte finish of classical sumi ink.

Boku-Undo has been making sumi in Nara since 1805, and this Shadow Black set is the line's purest expression of sumi's tonal language: a palette where every color sits closest to ink itself, ready for monochromatic studies, sumi-e under-painting, or any work where blackness with a hint of color is the goal. The pans go anywhere a small notebook fits.

For a brighter and a softer take on the same idea, see the Bright Colors and Pastel Colors sets in this series. The pans pair naturally with the Akashiya Sai Water Brush Pen for travel sketching, or browse more Japanese arts & crafts supplies.

How to Use

1. Wet a brush with clean water.
2. Touch the brush to a pan to load color. A quick dip gives a soft wash; a few seconds builds saturation toward near-black.
3. Paint directly on paper, or mix two pans in a separate dish for in-between tones.
4. Rinse the brush between colors. The pans rewet cleanly even after months of sitting closed.

Details

• Set contents: 6 dry watercolor pans (Reddish Black, Yellowish Black, Greenish Black, Bluish Black, Purplish Black, Brownish Black)
• Size: 7" × 2.6" × 0.6" (17.8 cm × 6.6 cm × 1.5 cm)
• Weight: 2.9 oz (82 g)
• Materials: pigments, sumi soot
• Origin: Made in Nara, Japan
• Brand: Boku-Undo

The Story of Boku-Undo

Founded in 1805 in Nara, a city that has produced Japanese ink for roughly thirteen hundred years, Boku-Undo has spent more than two centuries refining sumi for calligraphers, painters, and schools. The workshop still produces traditional ink sticks that are ground by hand on inkstones, but it also experiments steadily at the edges of that tradition: liquid sumi for brush painting, gansai-style watercolors, and these pan watercolors that translate the depth of soot into a format closer to a sketchbook.

What stays constant across every Boku-Undo product is the company's relationship with carbon. Sumi at its best is not simply black; it carries temperature, weight, and a settled quality that lets a single brushstroke read as both shadow and atmosphere. The Sumi Ink Watercolor line is Boku-Undo's modern attempt to carry that quality into a portable, color-aware format.