A Strange Outcome Of Using A Different Ink

[Charles Skinner]

I have no idea how to even start this post! Don't know how or where to start. --- I was a black ink only man for 40 years, but 10 or 12 years ago, I "got off into colors." Really glad it did. However, one color has had an unexpected effect on me, poor earthen vessel that I am! I can not say that it is "beautiful," or "eye catching," or "to write home about," but "it has "done something to me" ever since I used it for the first time.

 

I am writing about De Atramentis Jane Austen green ink!

 

Have you ever had an ink to do that to you? Please don't respond to this post in a rude way. Don't tell me that I need to "have my head checked," or that I need to give up fountain pens and inks and go back to using only pencils.

 

Respond only if an ink has ever "done this to you."

 

Write on, and "be for real,"

 

C. S.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I'd say Ama-Iro...but it is beautiful and eye-catching. I kept refilling the pen it was in (Metro Retro in Turquoise). Maybe Diamine Misty Blue, in part because it's so 'invisible,' and cleans out easily.

 

Then there was Chesterfield Obsidian, in a nameless Hero pen that didn't even work right but kept getting refilled. Because for those few pages when it did, I was in Paradise.

[alarickc]

Leonardo Red Chalk by Montblanc. The color is odd and the ink is less lubricating than I prefer. And yet, I'm so drawn to it.

[Scrawler]

Colour perception and how we respond are individual and personal.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

Texas Blue Bonnet

[Fuzzy_Bear]

Almost forgot. Stop using FP's and use pencils.

 

😁🤐

[Orpilorp]

Charles,

 

I think I know what you mean although there is no one color which leaps out at me. I used to be crazy for those mid tone blues, but lately the greenish brown, bile-like colors have my attention because they seem so natural.

 

I live in a heavily forested area. As this note is being written I'm looking into a solid wall of trees and wild flowers (okay, weeds) with many shades of green from yellow green to green black, but Jane Austen green is not there.

 

Don't get me wrong, Jane Austen is a perfect green; not yellow, not blue, not gray, just the perfect green. But I'm not drawn to it because I don't see it in my forest. But I'm like you in that if I see the "right" color I just have to have it.

[inkstainedruth]

I have a number of inks that were "must haves", and inks that had a similar effect on me, Charles. I used to not understand the concept of "blue-black" until I flushed that color out of a vintage Estie and then it was "Oh, MY!" That started the complete fascination I have now with blue-black inks. And I now have LOT of them -- ranging from "almost black" iron galls which oxidized, to some really teal-leaning ones like Noodler's 54th Massachusetts and Waterman Mysterious Blue (I had someone absolutely convinced that the WMB was a green ink but I was going "Nope -- I know what's in that pen at the moment!"), to the more grey-blue ones like Noodler's Henry Hudson Blue and the original formula of Organics Studio Blue Merle, to the super dark toned Diamine Twilight (and, though I don't have a bottle of either one yet, Noodler's Ellis Island Blue-Black and the FPN exclusive Van Gogh Starry Night).

I go through phases. A couple of years ago I was trying to match what had been written with a gel pen, so I tried a bunch of samples of burgundy and red-violet inks and came up with some winners. More recently, I've been on a turquoise and cerulean blue journey....

But I'd have to say that the two inks that really hit a nerve (but in a good way) for me were Noodler's Kung Te Cheng and Noodler's El Lawrence. There is NOTHING out there like those two inks in color. KTC doesn't get a lot of use at the moment (it is kind of a problem child ink) but I have never found *anything* else that was that color. As for El Lawrence I would never in a million years have picked that ink out for myself -- I was the "blue/pink/purple/silver grey ink girl". But I saw a review of it a couple of years ago, and it was like passing a car wreck where you can't look away. I kept staring at the photos in the review going "that is such a weird*ss color" and then going and looking at it some more. So I tried a sample and it was "Yup, I DEFINITELY need this ink...."

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Barkingpig]

Indeed yes, I have two of them. I keep 2 pens dedicated to their sole use & cannot imagine ever changing either. They aren't even my favorite color, but each ink in their respective pen seems "just right" & each makes me happy & "feeling settled," whenever I use either pen. Both pens had several fills of ink previously with inks that I perhaps even "liked better" when choosing them, BUT these two "sealed the deal for me!"

 

And I received Jane Austen last week, except mine came with scent, is called "BOOKWORM," which smells a bit like talc , but nothing reminiscent of books to me, yet is indeed a wonderful green ink.

[Ghost Plane]

Ku-jaku, R&K Verdigris, multiples of the Kobe line...yeah. Sometimes a color makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck and your heart sing.

[BayesianPrior]

Indeed yes, I have two of them. I keep 2 pens dedicated to their sole use & cannot imagine ever changing either. They aren't even my favorite color, but each ink in their respective pen seems "just right" & each makes me happy & "feeling settled," whenever I use either pen. Both pens had several fills of ink previously with inks that I perhaps even "liked better" when choosing them, BUT these two "sealed the deal for me!"

 

Exactly how I feel, only it's an ink that isn't my favourite in a pen which isn't my favourite...but together something very calming happens. Diamine Macassar in a matte black Cross Century II with gold trim (and XF nib) in case you're interested.

[Aelie]

Iroshizuku Ama-iro. It was the very first bright ink I ever tried. The moment I started writing with it, the experience reminded me of moments from my childhood watercolor lessons, where I would finally find that right color on my palette after endlessly mixing paints on my palette. I had been continually trying out new colors since then. One could say Ama-iro introduced me to this wonderful world of inks.

 

Ama-iro was an exception though. It usually takes time - sometimes weeks - for me to really like an ink (Kyonooto Kokeiro would be a good example). That probably has more to do with my personality than anything else.

[Arkanabar]

Noodler's Red-Black. I don't like the color near as much as a bunch of others I have, but I keep putting it in my M200, and writing stuff with it. It's a hardy ink (what it says on the bottle, a mix of Noodler's Red and Noodler's Black), and an easy-to-read color, and distinctive. Behavior is generally between tolerable and good (aside from the nib creep, which I do not permit to annoy me).

 

But the color has no appeal for me. I don't object to it, but ... there's no fondness for it, either.

 

And then there's Yama-Guri. When I first used it, I didn't like it. I wanted a warm brown, and it isn't; it's bit greenish and a bit grayish (I first characterized the color as frozen mud and dead sticks). But I determined to try it in a few more pens than just the one, and by virtue of its subtle golden undertone, it has since quite grown on me, to take its place as The Essential Brown Ink, once I more-or-less decided that Red-Black is actually a burgundy and not a brown.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Arkanabar

[webgeckos]

Yes. I don't like green inks much, but Pen and Message Cigar grabbed me around the neck and I fell in love with it.

[thudthwacker]

Hm. Turquoise inks, generally. It's not a color I thought I'd ever like, but so many of them shade beautifully and have a pink-red edge-sheen that I like. I'm just happy looking at them.

 

Sheaffer Skrip King's Gold, too. I would have sworn that I have no use for a sort of mustard-y brownish-yellow, but I really do love King's Gold. Couldn't really tell you why. And, as I've only got the one cartridge that came with the NOS Sheaffer calligraphy set I bought, I'm going to be sad to see it go.

[martinbir]

For me it is Diamine Eau de Nil. Strange greenish, almost a turquoise black. Disliked it at first, put in the mistake box and must have sat unused for a year of so. Then I gave it another go and just keep on using it. Like a sort of pale Yama Dori which supplanted it for a while, but back with EdN now and near the end of the second 80ml bottle.

 

It is strange how one particular ink from outside one's usual spectrum can just seem to hit the spot.

[pajaro]

Montblanc violet, out of production. I am using my last bottle. Better to use it than let the heirs toss it.

 

Otherwise I like blue blacks.

[visvamitra]

There were few of them actually, my biggest inky fascinations were Nagasawa-kobe Souraken Tea Green (Love from first sight, still strong), Lamy Dark Lilac (love from first use. still strong), Standardgraph Himmelblau (now I dislike it), J. Herbin's Lie de The (still love it), Sailor Brown ink (still love it), Iroshizuku Yu-yake (still in use) and few others.

[fireant]

The first ink I experienced this with was Noodler's Black Swans in Australian Roses. Since then I've felt this way about Parker Penmen Sapphire and Sailor's Onago-iro Hachimitsu (honey) inks.

 

Because I know I can always get it, I tend to use BSiAR far more. But perhaps I need to do what Pajaro is doing and use what I have-my sister would understand.

[IrishEyes]

Lamy Turquoise, J. Herbin 1670 Rouge Hematite, Sailor Jentle Kin-Mosukei, and Kobe #25 Tarumi Apricot all have that same effect on me. 4 colors, and 5 favorite pens constantly filled with these colors (2 different sizes of YOL, in case you're wondering why "5", instead of "4"). I can't imagine not having those colors available to me at all times.