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InkShift - Pelikan Edelstein Mandarin to Aventurine Just for the fun of it, I decided to do a project exploring what happens when you move progressively from one ink colour to another. For now, I'm restricting myself to inks from the same manufacturer - mainly to avoid nasty chemical surprises. My hope is that some of these "inkshifts" result in interesting colours that I can use to write/draw with. And besides... it's just fun to watch one ink colour morph into another one. Mandarin (orange) and Aventurine (green) are regular Edelstein inks. Nice inks, but not really exciting. I decided to explore the territory in between to find out if something interesting turns up. As always, I start with 1:1 and 1:2 mixes to see what areas to explore. In this case, Aventurine clearly is the dominating ink, so I decided to zoom in more on the Mandarin side of the spectrum. In the span between these two inks, there are some interesting colours to be found. My personal favourites are:15 parts Mandarin / 1 part Aventurine : a nice sepia type colour3 parts Mandarin / 1 part Aventurine : an appealing moss greenI really enjoy these morphing experiments. You never know what surprises will turn up, and the resulting colours are often a lot more interesting than the standard ink colours you start with.

Pelikan Edelstein Mandarin In 2011 Pelikan introduced the Edelstein series of high-end inks, available in a variety of colours. The theme of the Edelstein concept is the gemstone - each ink corresponds to the beautiful colour of a gem. The Edelstein line of inks is presented in 50 ml high-value bottles, that are truly beautiful, and worthy of a place on your desk. In this review I take a closer look at Mandarin, one of the standard inks in the Edelstein line-up. Mandarin is a very nice orange. It's a vibrant colour, but by no means exuberantly so... and it happens to be a superb shading ink! This ink is on the dry side, even for an Edelstein - a characteristic that I have noticed more often than not with inks of the yellow/orange complexion. As such, I preferred using this ink with a wet Pelikan. It's an ideal match for my M600 Vibrant Orange! Mandarin leans heavily towards the yellow at the unsaturated end of its spectrum. In my opinion, much of the ink's shading appeal is due to the combination of yellow & orange that shows on the page. The chromatography clearly shows the yellow & orange components of this ink. From the bottom part of the chroma you can also see that there is zero water resistance... all the colour migrates away with the water. This orange Mandarin works really well as a writing ink that can handle all nib ranges without a problem. Even with fine nibs the saturation is ok, but keep in minds that it feels very dry with these nibs. With my Safari test pens, the writing experience was not nice when using the EF/F nib, but improved when moving to M and above territory. In all honesty, you should do yourself a favour and pair Mandarin with a wet pen. Much more joy! Shading is simply great, especially with broader nibs. I really like what I see, a pity about the dryness of this ink. To show you the impact of saturation on the ink's look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of the Tomoe River paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Mandarin moves from a faint yellow-orange to a dark almost red orange. A beautiful colour span, and one that shows great promise for drawing. Technically, the ink has its shortcomings: very dry, feels a bit unlubricated and has absolutely no water resistance. Drying times are quite short in the 5 to 10 second range with the Lamy Safari M-nib. Mandarin looks good with both white and more yellowish paper, but I personally prefer the way it looks on pure white paper. With the lesser-quality papers in my test set (Moleskine and printing paper), the ink showed some minor feathering and quite some show-through/bleed-through. The ink thus works best with wet pens and good quality paper. I love the way it looks in my Paperblanks journal. I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper - from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On every small band of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturationAn ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain penThe name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nibA small text sample, written with the Safari M-nibOrigin of the Terry Pratchett quote with my Pelikan M600 F-nibDrying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari) Writing with different nib sizesThe picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing. All samples were written with a Lamy Safari, which is typically a dry pen. I also added a visiting pen - my wet Pelikan M600 Vibrant Orange with an F-nib. My M600 was made for this ink - they make a great couple. Related inksTo show off related inks, I use my standard nine-grid format, with the currently reviewed ink at the center. It shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test - all in a very compact format. The grid makes it easy to compare the ink with its eight direct neighbours, which I hope will be useful to you. Inkxperiment – city sunsetWith every review, I try to produce an interesting drawing using only the ink I'm working on. I simply love this part of the review, where I can experiment with the ink in a more artistic setting. Some inkxperiments are only so-so and others work great, but all of them were fun to do. From the saturation sample with its broad tonal range stretching from yellow- to red-orange, it was already clear that Mandarin would be a great drawing ink. I started with a 18x13 cm page of HP photo paper, and applied a wet paper towel with ink to create the textured background. Next I used a Q-tip and brush to paint in the city buildings, accentuating them with pure Mandarin applied with a glass dip pen. I finally added the setting sun, and some people on the streets. I quite like the end result... the yellow and red in this orange ink make for a very interesting mix of colour tones. ConclusionPelikan Edelstein Mandarin is an ink with technical shortcomings, most obviously its dryness. But with wet pens and/or broader nibs these shortcoming quickly disappear, and you get a nice writing ink with really beautiful shading. I liked using the ink for personal journaling, and simply loved it for drawing. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib Back-side of writing samples on different paper types From Idea to DrawingThis inkxperiment practically drew itself. It started with a very minimal concept drawing as the main idea. Next I decided to try a new technique for creating the painting's background. I took a sheet of HP photo paper, and covered it with a paper kitchen towel. I then wetted the towel, and painted some ink on top of it with a brush. The ink migrated through the towel to the underlying photo paper, creating some very interesting-looking textures. This is a technique that I will surely use in future inkxperiments! I then used Mandarin with a few water/ink ratios, and drew in the city block with a Q-tip and brush, adding the accents with a glass pen dipped in the ink bottle. The sun and the people in the street were painted in with a brush, using ever more saturated ink. I was really impressed with this Edelstein ink... the colour range that Mandarin is capable of is really impressive. It moves effortlessly from a yellow to an almost red dark orange. Fantastic!

Hey folks, got a conundrum here. I got this older Delta fountain pen in today and I haven't been able to find any information online. The only thing I know is that it uses the older Delta handscript logo, meaning it's likely pre-2000, but that's all I've got. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

i picked up this unusual sheaffer school pen in mandarin orange. i don't normally mess with them, but i could not resist given the color. looking into it more the cap does not look like any of the other school pens i can find online. is this a normal sheaffer cartridge pen? it has a 305 nib and the parts are all interchangeable with other school pens. mandarin snorkel included for color/size comparisons.

You may have gathered from the title that I am not that fussed on Edelstein's Mandarin. When I first saw it I thought, 'Oh, a truly popping orange', but that thought was rapidly replaced with a retina burning headache. I tend to like reds and oranges, but I like them to have a little subtlety about them and not quite 'true' in their colour spectrum (if that makes sense). Iro's Yu-yake, the Fuyu-gaki, Noodler's Apache Sunset, couple of the Diamine oranges, Herbin's Orange Indien; you get the idea, I like reds and oranges. Mandarin seemed like a great choice, but in a very short time I grew to truly loathe it. I even contemplated throwing it down the sink just so I could use the bottle for something else. Then I had a brain wave. Why don't I add a few drops of Edelstein's Onyx Black? So, three small drops later and with dip pen in hand I tested it. It's a little similar to Apache Sunset. Now bear in mind I tested this with a dip pen on highly absorbent paper. At first it was extremely similar to the Noodler's, but as it dried the shading disappeared (not unexpected with this ink). Dried and unshaded you are left with a rich orange saffron with a noticeable red aspect. It still 'pops', but it isn't headache inducing and it has left me with an ink that I can now happily use. I will try and get a pick uploaded later. Just thought I would let you all know in case, like me, you had contemplated ditching the ink, or wondered how on earth you might ever use it.

Humble as opposed to the epic comparos found here! Still, might be of use to someone. Paper: HP laser 32lb, which is as nice as I read it would be. Iroshizuku fuyu gaki in Platinum Cool M nib.J Herbin orange indien in Parker sonnet with a beat up F nib. Deserves a better home.Pelikan Edelstein mandarin in Lamy Vista M nib.Diamine poppy red in Muji F nib.J Herbin 1670 rouge hematite in Lamy Vista F nib (over flowing with crud but hey, it flows). It looks darker and less red than on clairefontaine paper, more tyrian purple than blood. Colours look faithful at least on a macbook pro retina 13 except for Mandarin. Mandarin looks more like this: They are all distinct from each other and beautiful; I was worried fuyu gaki might be pink which I can't stand but it's definitely an orange with red undertones.

I was wondering if anyone here has tried this system for learning to read, write and speak Mandarin. TED TALK The basic system - if I understand it correctly - is that you learn 8 characters and their meanings, and then 32 compound phrases made from those eight. When you have them you grab another 8 characters and so on. Mandarin seems to lend itself well to this kind of vocabulary building. I think I read somewhere on the originator's website that if you learn 200 characters you will have the language capabilities of an 8 year old Chinese child. Well I don't know about anyone else but my ambitions are small. If I could speak Mandarin like an 8 year old I would be well pleased! I combine the above method with some basic rules for the order in which pen/brush strokes should be made when writing the characters. This generally helps me to retain the meaning and form a little easier. There are books and flashcards available, and these are fine tools for sure, but I need to write it down to drive it home in my head. So, anyone have any thoughts or experience with this system?

Having just spotted the lovely-looking Diamine Peach and Coral on Amber's thread, I was wondering if anyone could let me know how they compare to Pelikan's Edelstein Mandarin please? I have the latter, but a pinky-orange might be nice to own too, if it's different enough Thank you!

Another bright orange. I've picked up a few lately. This one really does remind me of mandarin oranges. Flow is wet. Has a traditional feel. A bit like an Iroshizuku ink, which I guess is appropriate considering both their premium placements. Honestly, I like Yu yake better for flow. Operation Overlord Orange has more water resistance. And I'm a big fan of Apache Sunset with more shading. That's my personal preference. But I do like all of these oranges color-wise.