Ink Review: Diamine Ochre

[Chrissy]

My latest ink is Diamine Ochre

I've never used Diamine Ochre before. However I have received letters from penpals written with Conway Stewart Kingsand, that is the same ink, and I decided I really liked it. So I decided to try a sample. It's a saturated reddish ochre earth colour with plenty of shading. It's less red than Diamine Ancient Copper and looks darker and more brown than Diamine Terracotta and Montblanc Carlo Collodi. It's like dark sand on a sandy beach.

It wrote straight away without any hard starts or skipping. It lubricated the nib very well, but the flow felt slightly dry, as these red ochre type colours seem to be.

It's a very water resistant ink. I could still see all of the writing, even after over 30 minutes, and though I blotted my water test with a piece of kitchen roll, the ink dots in the centre of the water test were still legible.

• Although this isn't a waterproof ink, it shows very good water resistance, as do many inks in this colour range.

• Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny surface, and I used a Lamy F nib and a 1.1mm nib, this ink took 12-16 secs to dry. That's about average on this paper.

• It felt maybe a little drier than some other inks I've reviewed, but still flowed and lubricated the nib well enough. I saw no skips or hard starts while I did swabs and dry time tests.

• It is currently available in 80ml glass bottles or 30ml plastic bottles

• Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.

• It's a reasonable price.

[hazel]

Great review!!

[bobje]

Chrissy, your review shows how similar these rusty oranges seem to be. I may like ochre the best, although, as with brown and green inks, perhaps one can never have enough choices.

[DrDebG]

Nice review! Not a favorite color, though.

[Chrissy]

Chrissy, your review shows how similar these rusty oranges seem to be. I may like ochre the best, although, as with brown and green inks, perhaps one can never have enough choices.

 

Thanks. Yes I see what you mean. I think they have a niche though. Even if only for people who don't like to use brown inks, but like 'autumnal' or 'fall' natural earth type colours.

 

I also have Autumn Oak to review .....

[alexander_k]

Thanks for the review. Ochre is my favourite of this category, too.

[wastelanded]

What a lovely colour! Your reviews are excellent, thank you for sharing with us.

[aardvarkbark]

Great review, thanks. This is my favorite brown. I'm surprised to see, when cleaning out after using it, just how much red is in it.

[bobje]

I found these splashes today and thought they might contribute to Chrissy's review of ochre, aka rusty orange.

 

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the review. I like Diamine Ochre okay, but think I have a slight preference for Diamine Terra Cotta.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Sholom]

I sampled Ochre and liked it more than any of the other orange-browns I tried besides Kiowa Pecan, but I found Ochre rather painful to clean out of my pen. It took days to get the last traces of pinkish-red (Amaranth??) out. Has anyone else experienced this?

[MaryAma]

I sampled Ochre and liked it more than any of the other orange-browns I tried besides Kiowa Pecan, but I found Ochre rather painful to clean out of my pen. It took days to get the last traces of pinkish-red (Amaranth??) out. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Yes I found it difficult too. Bits of crust had developed everywhere. I had to soak every part for long and rub everything with a soft brush.