Rohrer & Klingner Sketch Ink: Lotte (review)

[Intensity]

While we are on the permanence discussion here in terms of water resistance, I should add that some of these pigment inks have dreadful fading resistance.  For example Platinum Sepia Brun fades significantly, quite easily.  Lennon ToolBar Plastic Sky is permanent pigment, but fades when exposed to light.  Although not pigment, but some Noodler’s inks with high water resistance, like Red Fox or the Russian line, fade somewhat/change color.  I usually can forgive quick fading for inks not intended to be “permanent”, but it’s hard to forgive for pigment inks.

[Adeline V]

Oh man, I didn't even go INTO disposable pen ink....  TLDR; Uni super inks for the win.

[mouse2cat]

16 hours ago, txomsy said:

BTW, for those who like sketching with brush, I have to say, Kuretake black, the one they ship with their brush fountain pens, is amazingly water resistant. I recently forgot an A7 notebook in a jeans pocket when doing the laundry. After going through the washing machine with detergent et al. and hanging in the line under strong summer sun, the pages with Kuretake black brush FP sketches were absolutely the same, no washing at all, the lines and colors as sharp as when first laid down, one couldn't tell they'd had suffered any change.

 

Interesting. I have a couple cartridges of that ink but I wasn't particularly excited to use them but now I will give it a try.  

[InesF]

Thank you @mouse2cat for the initial review and for the extension with ink comparisons! It's always interesting to compare ink colours and behaviours.

 

Knowning the Sketchink line roughly since pandemic provided me more time at home, I never had a problem with using them in my Lamy and Kaweco fountain pens. Rohrer & Klingner also has a dedicated cleaning agent in their product line which I had to use only once so far and which removed all and every residue in a dried pen.

 

I was able to see any precipitate in an unshaken Sketchink bottle by slowly turning it upside down (closed, for sure) to a 45 degrees angel and patiently waiting ca. 30 seconds.

 

And yes, the same here, the high tendency for foaming is the only disadvantage of the Sketchinks.

[Adeline V]

On 9/28/2021 at 12:24 AM, InesF said:

the high tendency for foaming is the only disadvantage of the Sketchinks.

Huh!  I noticed that too.  it's a little annoying with a dip pen.  I havent put any into a real pen yet though.  I realyl didnt like the blue color of frieda.  I got some Emma though which is a pretty green so I might try that in a pen.

FYI about this photo:

the whole page was lightly misted with a spritz of plain water, railroaded sections to the right side were additionally washed over with a wet squirrel mop brush.  the whole page was left to dry before the photo was taken.  no blotting.  minimal brushing over the lined areas, but any surface ink would have been disturbed.  left to dry like, 20 minutes maybe before wetting the page.  no specific time.  if looked dry so I went for it, much like I would when creating a drawing and then painting over the linework.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Adeline V
added note about photo

[mouse2cat]

Adeline, Thank you for the comparison page! That is really helpful and consistent with my experience. I thought I would like Freida more too, it's just just got a lot of grey in it and it tends to spread a little thick. I think it will give me better results in very fine nib. 

 

Emma is a very useful color, it's a true sap green. I like to put it in a brush pen for some plant business. 

 

Instead of shaking the bottle try rolling it in your hands. It mixes the sediment back in without creating as much foam.

 

How do you like Urban Sienna? I just got a bottle of that ink and I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. One review on Goulet said they had flow issues with that ink. 

[mouse2cat]

On 9/26/2021 at 11:04 AM, Intensity said:

While we are on the permanence discussion here in terms of water resistance, I should add that some of these pigment inks have dreadful fading resistance.  For example Platinum Sepia Brun fades significantly, quite easily.  Lennon ToolBar Plastic Sky is permanent pigment, but fades when exposed to light.  Although not pigment, but some Noodler’s inks with high water resistance, like Red Fox or the Russian line, fade somewhat/change color.  I usually can forgive quick fading for inks not intended to be “permanent”, but it’s hard to forgive for pigment inks.

 

Aw dang I am so sad to hear that about Platinum Sepia. I have that ink, I'll keep it in the sketchbook only category. Have you seen any light tests on these inks? Or do we need to makes some? I have a pretty substantial collection of permanent inks I could do a lightfast test on. 

 

Red Pigments are really prone to fading. Even in my fancy pants watercolor kit my Magenta has very poor lightfastness. The challenge is that lightfast reds tend to be toxic and are harder to sell due to regulation. 

[Adeline V]

20 hours ago, mouse2cat said:

How do you like Urban Sienna? I just got a bottle of that ink and I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

I only just got a sample to try out yesterday.  I use a dip pen as you see, and it didn't give me any noticable guff in the relatively short trial I ran.  I find generally ALL the document inks FEEL the same and are very consistent.  notice there are ARTISTS inks there too.  they DID feel different from color to color, and that blue at the bottom of the page was really wet and thin- it sank RIGHT into the fibers, whereas the magenta was very stingy with itself.  I sort of hate that B 5 1/2 dip nib, it's persnickity and scratchy and can be stingy with flow.  but it was obviously the ink in that instance and not the nib.  the urban sienna was more golden than I'd want to fil a big ol' TSBI piston full of for my purposes- Southeast AK is like ansel adams silvery grey colored at basically all times except for cool coniferous greens, payne's grey, vandyke brown, and cobalt greens for water.  on sunny days it's cerulean blue chromium on top of those.  so we basically never have golden brown like the southwest would have.  my purpose was finding a good flexible brown for daily sketch use.  the doc brown was the warmest and most flexible for me.

 

yeah, I do roll bottles, some.  that R&K sketch is something else for the sediment and foaming though.  remarkably so.

 

as far as lightfastness, I have been keeping most of my work in sketchbooks at this time.  it's hard for me to perform my own tests here at latitude 54-ish.  we really truly do have so much cloud cover even in the long summer day months that it's just very very filtered UV.  it too over a year to see any fading of Kremer Carmine naccarat, which is SUUUper not lightfast but goregeous gorgeous red pigment.

 

I read some place a long time ago that reds are also far more prone to oxidization as well as light fading, which is why bright red cars can fade often in cheaper models- its that combination of oxidization and light fading

 

the de'atramentis site specifies that the ARTIST line of inks is more lightfast than the document line.  it gives some european standards testing numbers but I'm not super familiar with those iso or whatever they were type standards and what those ratings actually mean.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Adeline V

[Intensity]

20 hours ago, mouse2cat said:

 

Aw dang I am so sad to hear that about Platinum Sepia. I have that ink, I'll keep it in the sketchbook only category. Have you seen any light tests on these inks? Or do we need to makes some? I have a pretty substantial collection of permanent inks I could do a lightfast test on. 

 

Red Pigments are really prone to fading. Even in my fancy pants watercolor kit my Magenta has very poor lightfastness. The challenge is that lightfast reds tend to be toxic and are harder to sell due to regulation. 

 

What do you mean by have I seen any light tests on those inks?  In this case I'm reporting from personal experience--I have written with Sepia Brun and Plastic Sky and those Noodler's inks and put them up near windows to see their fading progress.  I do this with all of the inks I get.  Sepia Brun is very much not light-fast.  If you keep it up on a wall in a fairly dark room, it will probably be okay for a long time.  If you have an unprotected artwork with glancing daylight from a window on it, it will fade significantly over time.  I know there are some UV protection sprays for art as well as "museum glass", but I haven't used those myself yet.

[mouse2cat]

Intensity, I guess I was thinking about how it fades. Some inks will color shift as they fade while some will just disappear. The Brun Sepia has a lot of pink in it and my thought was it may be the pink that fades leaving something yellower. And how long does it take to fade in direct sunlight? 

This was not in any way casting doubt on the evidence you have observed. More that it warrants some testing to see how much of an issue this ink may be for me. 

 

Adeline, I agree the Urban Sienna seems very yellow brown but that is ideal for the golden hills of California. Maybe I can post a review of both these inks once I get a bit more experience with them. 

[Intensity]

It just faded to a paler appearance, it did not exhibit any noticeable color shift in my experience.  I had it up taped to a window.There were inks that faded and others that didn’t or barely did.  Oddly it’s marketed as fading-resistant...  but that was not my experience.  I think perhaps they mean it resists fading in a closed notebook, but so do most better quality modern inks.

 

 

[Adeline V]

PURE SPECULATION FOLLOWS:

 

In the watercolor world, there is much discussion over the lightfastness (specifically, if it deserves to be considered light-fast), of a pigment called Prussian Blue - aka PB27 (Pigment Blue 27)- which is an iron complex pigment.  This particular pigment fades in sunlight *BUT* oddly, when taken back into darkness regains its color saturation over a short time.  Super weird. 

 

Now, I am NOT a chemist, and maybe somebody out there who is can chime in and answer this speculation with some actual authority...  But I'm seeing that many of the inks noted on the sample page there are iron gall inks.  I think iron gall inks react with oxygen to make chemical bonds to the paper, but, are also slightyly acidic, and historically formulated IG inks have been reported even to eat thru paper as if laser etched over time.  All rumors as far as I know. I am not old enough to have conducted such experiments.  But its what I heard.  and I do so love good gossip.  Don't you?  😻

 

I could not tell if those faded and unfaded swatches were blocked out and swabbed the same day, with half exposed and half blacked out, or if they were swabbed later NEXT to the original swabs, after they had faded.... This matters because of the variable and multiple light and chemical properties involved, and you could therefore not attribute the cause of the fading to be from exposure to the light, or if it was from exposure to the oxygen.  For that matter, if the swabs were painted later, it could have even been a third factor, like the aging of the ink in the bottle becoming richer due to evaporation or even something else.  Sinister elves, for example, who have been laid off at the cookie factory due to economic downturns. 

Hey-- It's only paranoia if I'm wrong.

 

But to do a light test, the ONLY variable being tested must be the light.  So BOTH swabs must be done at the same time. All other variables must be eliminated by the method of testing.  One should be exposed to light and the other kept in the same area and circumstances, but kept in total darkness.  Typically just in a drawer nearby is fine so long as the air, temperature, and humidity, etc, is close enough to the same as the sample being exposed to light. this would rule out the oxidization of the ink as the culprit for the fading.

But...

If you took the ink out of the bottle months after the original swatches were painted and faded, the new ink would not have that same time exposure to the air, and would of course still look deep and fresh... But this method of testing-- it would not account for whether it was a sensitivity to say, oxygen, or a photo sensitivity which caused the fading of the initial swatches. Or again, those vindictive elves.

 

Now, if you put the paper in a vacuum while it was exposed to light- well- that'd be swell.  No issue.  But I'm guessing that was less likely than the other scenarios. (Those elves are twnacious.  It's how they get the primo cookie jobs. ) 😉

 

[yazeh]

 

@Adeline V 

For historical Iron gall ink, you can check this link.

High humidity ( read water damage) and handling does affect historical IG documents. Also the bad quality of paper, especially in XIXth century. 

Often older vellum documents survive much better, than "Modern Victorian" ones. 

Here is another page on chemistry...

For modern IG inks, it could be modern FP paper. 

Scabiosa is notorious for fading overtime on normal FP paper if exposed to light.

ON Cotton mix paper it doesn't. 

[Adeline V]

21 hours ago, yazeh said:

For modern IG inks, it could be modern FP paper. 

Scabiosa is notorious for fading overtime on normal FP paper if exposed to light.

ON Cotton mix paper it doesn't. 

That could be a result of lignin in cellulose papers being higher. as noted in that article, which seemed to essentially be the argument that metals lose electrons and a vote for oxidization rather than solarization. 

 

Too bad.  I was hoping for cookies.

[Intensity]

On 10/8/2021 at 4:14 AM, yazeh said:

 

@Adeline V 

For historical Iron gall ink, you can check this link.

High humidity ( read water damage) and handling does affect historical IG documents. Also the bad quality of paper, especially in XIXth century. 

Often older vellum documents survive much better, than "Modern Victorian" ones. 

Here is another page on chemistry...

For modern IG inks, it could be modern FP paper. 

Scabiosa is notorious for fading overtime on normal FP paper if exposed to light.

ON Cotton mix paper it doesn't. 

 

That's a pretty interesting website with useful, albeit abstract, information.  One curious bit of basic information was new to me:

 

"A fresh iron gall ink has a bluish purplish shade. Over time, this colour changes to brown. Also, most iron gall inks increase in opacity."

 

Usually I see it said that the IG component turns gray-to-black, not brown.  It makes sense to think of modern IG inks turning gray-black, because they are usually mixed with blue dyes which counteract any warm tint and result a neutral-to-cool gray color.

 

Also it makes me appreciate R&K Scabiosa more as it follows this exact coloration pattern closely: a blue-purple-violet that gradually browns to a warm muted red-purple.  (Though I actually wish it wouldn't change in that warm direction--I love the initial blue-leaning purple hue).

 

[yazeh]

6 hours ago, Intensity said:

 

That's a pretty interesting website with useful, albeit abstract, information.  One curious bit of basic information was new to me:

 

"A fresh iron gall ink has a bluish purplish shade. Over time, this colour changes to brown. Also, most iron gall inks increase in opacity."

Note this is the historic  iron gall ink. Not the FP one. And also note there were as many as different recipes as nowadays for multiple inks. Each house hold had it's own recipe... 

6 hours ago, Intensity said:

 

Usually I see it said that the IG component turns gray-to-black, not brown.  It makes sense to think of modern IG inks turning gray-black, because they are usually mixed with blue dyes which counteract any warm tint and result a neutral-to-cool gray color.

This is over decades, if not centuries...

 

[Dt123]

Here's some testing to add to the knowledge.

 

Lotte and DeAtramentis Document Black on cheap copy paper:

 

On the above: pale yellow is Highlighter, orange Prismacolor Marker, light blue Copic marker