Fabriano Black Black Pad - 300gsm Ultra-Black Drawing Paper

The deepest black in the range — built for dry media and metallic ink contrast

Fabriano Black Black achieves its exceptionally deep colour through high-quality, lightfast pigments rather than a simple dark dye, which means the black does not fade or shift tone over time the way lower-quality black papers can. At 300gsm it is genuinely heavyweight for a coloured drawing paper, giving it real durability under pastel blending, eraser work, and repeated handling, while remaining flexible enough not to crack along fold lines. The primary appeal for Inkwell customers is the dramatic contrast it offers white and metallic gel pens, white paint markers, and metallic inks — colours that simply do not register the same way on white paper read as luminous and high-contrast against this surface.

A genuine point of disagreement — watercolour and gouache suitability

Sources disagree on this point and we want to be direct about it rather than pick a side without evidence. Several retailers state Fabriano Black Black is 'not recommended for pure water techniques such as gouache and watercolor', citing the heavier weight as helpful but insufficient for full wet media. At least one other major retailer describes the same paper as accepting 'light water media such as gouache and watercolors'. Our reading of this conflict: the paper can likely tolerate light, controlled application of gouache or watercolour — a dry-ish brush, opaque gouache used more like paint-pen application — but is not suited to loose washes or heavily diluted watercolour, which is consistent with both descriptions if 'light' is read narrowly. If your work depends on wet media performance, test on a single sheet before committing a finished piece to this paper.