Monthly Ink Challenge - Season IV

[yazeh]

Lovely selection of inks, pen, and a flow (or a torrent) of creative ideas  

Looking forward to this month's challenge  

 

[LizEF]

5 hours ago, InesF said:

Unbelievable, how well he could reproduce flowing water in a painting

I'll say!  That's incredible!

 

6 hours ago, InesF said:

May the ink FLOW never stop!

Hear, hear!

[InesF]

Monthly Ink Challenge – Result June

 

Similar to May, I had already a clear vision about how June should look like. The concept was more simple but the realisation turned out to be tricky. It seems, I don’t like it the easy way.

 

Here is the result for Season IV, June:

 

My intention was to draw something like a jet of water that bends under gravity, splashes into a rounded cavity where it becomes redirected upwards and distributes (into nothing). Doing it as a line draw with parallel lines to symbolise the jet(s) was the initial idea which I kept. However, I changed it from drawing the lines with the June Inks towards drawing them with the proven waterproof ink (Rohrer & Klingner Lotte) in the Opus 88min EF. I did apply the meanwhile four inks only as washes, giving the whole thing the character of a hand-coloured BW photo of old.

Hmm, it looks more like some growing life-form, such as veins or so ...

 

Two days ago I did rotate-in the Waterman Serenité M-goccia filled with Colorverse Quasar. I used pen and ink in the same combination in Season 1. These two fit so well together, as if they were made for each other, and I can’t think of using each of them in other setups any more. I bought the pen second hand from a big European stationary shop and had to „improve‟ the nib as it was much too wet, even worse than a firehose. I couldn’t write with it, also not with high surface tension inks, such as the Waterman Serenity Blue. It was my first goccia grind and, while not perfect, I love the pen with this nib a lot!

 

So far for June.

 

Please feel welcome to post your creative pieces, if you have not already. Drawings, paintings, text, ornaments, everything is welcome!

[yazeh]

Lovely artwork @InesF, it reminds me very much of an elbabote braid, of a mythical woman and /or her mighty steed.

[LizEF]

5 hours ago, InesF said:

My intention was to draw something like a jet of water that bends under gravity, splashes into a rounded cavity where it becomes redirected upwards and distributes (into nothing). Doing it as a line draw with parallel lines to symbolise the jet(s) was the initial idea which I kept. However, I changed it from drawing the lines with the June Inks towards drawing them with the proven waterproof ink (Rohrer & Klingner Lotte) in the Opus 88min EF. I did apply the meanwhile four inks only as washes, giving the whole thing the character of a hand-coloured BW photo of old.

Hmm, it looks more like some growing life-form, such as veins or so ...

It's wonderful!  My first thought was water morphing into stems at the end and sprouting new leaves.    Seems perfect to me!

[yazeh]

This was part of the Inktober challenge, and it flows perfectly with your theme.  

 

Inks used: 
Essri Iron gall ink
J Herbin Bouton d'or/ Bleu calanque
Noodler's Apache Sunset

 

 

 

[InesF]

17 hours ago, yazeh said:

This was part of the Inktober challenge, and it flows perfectly with your theme.  

 Indeed, what a summertime-flow! That's great!

Thank you so much for contributing to the Ink Challenge! 

[InesF]

Monthly Ink Challenge IV – July 2025

 

The July Set consists of the following fife inks and fountain pens (four of them planned since longer time, one last minute addition as the result of an impulsive ink buy 🙄 ) 

Octopus & Fountainfeder Midsommar – in Waterman Perspective Champagne One Life M

Colorverse Quasar – in Waterman Serenié goccia

Dominant Industry Downpour – in Pelikan M640 Niagara M

Robert Oster Muddy Wine – in Visconti Divina Bordeaux M-stub

Tintenlabor Petrol IG 1 g/L – in Pelikan M600 Turquoise-White F-stub

 

Here are the fountain pens with the ink swatch cards:

 

 

Start of July is – at least for me – the entry date for the „big‟ summer vacation period, lasting this year first time during July and August. It is therefore mentally connected to a more relaxed lifestyle with many open-air events, casual activities, family gatherings, marriages, vacation travel in general and a remembering to „seize the day‟.

 

Some words about the selected fountain pens and inks:

The Waterman Perspective Champagne was my first online buy after COVID lockdown in 2020. I guess, the pandemic virus and the fountain pen „collecting virus‟ are somehow related to each other. Whatever it was that made me order the engraving „ONE LIFE‟, it stood mentally with me and never felt out of my sight. This is not only a pen, not only a beautiful piece of art, not only a boring M steel nib, it is also a symbol for me – like a lucky charm. I used many inks with this pen, more than 60, finally. Because it was the pen for my ink consumption measurements. The Octopus & Fountainfeder Midsommar ink was another impulsive buy deriving from the desire of using an intense and colourful ink for the start of the summer time. This ink has a vibrant orange colour, is well lubricated and overall well behaved – it was a big positive surprise – like a lucky charm! 👍

 

Already at begin of June, I reported about the Waterman Serenité and the Colorverse Quasar. No changes since then, I still like how these two were made for each other.

 

While the Pelikan M640 Niagara has the size of the M60x series, the barrel-shaped body and the significantly higher weight makes it special. The pen slips into my hand and finds its writing position by its own. The missing ink window is a big negative point but is more than outweigh by its elegance, stability and writing performance. While not among my top fife, it is, nevertheless, always one of the first that came to mind when searching for a rigid pen with wet writing nib. The surprisingly dry and low lubricated Dominant Industry Downpour ink is a good candidate for any wet Pelikan pen as those can balance out the missing ink properties. Only visible from a wet line, the ink starts to lay down as an almost blue-grey and becomes a lighter cold grey when dry. This was not to see with the Leonardo EF nib (which wrote scratchy with this ink). Downpour and the M640 pen also fit thematically well together – I can almost see the water spray near the Niagara falls.

 

I have a quite special love-hate relationship to my Visconti Divina Bordeaux. I bought it from a big European online vendor with the added order of grinding the M nib to a stub and do a nib smoothing. OK. It arrived as a desert dry smooth stub nib plugged into one of the most beautiful pen bodies I ever held in my hand. Dismantling the nib unit, blowing out possible grinding residues and sanding the inside (!) of the nib slit made it at least so much more wet that I can now use inks with a surface tension up to 45 mN/m. Robert Oster Muddy Wine is in this surface tension range and was an obvious choice, colour- and theme-wise. (remark: the thematically better fitting R&K Bordeaux ink is not wet enough …). Muddy Wine has a legible colour for daily use in note-taking for self and for colleagues but doesn’t excite me too much. End of July it may move to the „to be gifted away‟ box.

 

And now – drum roll 🥁 – the surprise of the month: It was all about finding the right pen for this special IG recipe from David at Tintenlabor. And I found it at the first attempt after theory crafting: the Pelikan M600 Turquoise-White with F-stub nib. The pen is „a tiny bit‟ less beautiful compared to the Visconti Divina but has the „a huge bit‟ wetter nib. Not much more to say about this M600 than: optimal size, beautiful colour combination, integrated searching game about the residual ink amount (the pen body is a bit translucent – with the right light, with only exactly the right light, you may guess the ink level) and equipped with a stunning smooth gold nib that gained some character after grinding it to a stub. The Tintenlabor Petrol IG 1 g/L iron was a special production after I told David about my most loved colours. Oh man, what arrived at me was a bulls eye! The ink is a perfect combination of being well lubricated and having high surface tension, means: asking for a wet nib to provide a good shading potential. The fresh line is a bright turquoise that fits almost exactly to the Pelikan pen body. But when it dries it becomes darker and shifts towards petrol (almost teal) within the first one or two minutes. The oxidation happens fast so that it is easy to follow the darkening during writing. The line before is already petrol and the second line above looks saturated and a bit muted. I can’t stop writing with this ink!

Therefore here my try for oxidation photos (my respect for @yazeh has increased dramatically; now I know how difficult oxidation photos are to be made!  ). Much has she (young Padavan InesF) to learn!

 

This first is on an impregnated and slightly ivory coloured paper (the paper is good, the ink is good, I was too slow...)

 

The second is on a more absorbent notepad paper with 5mm square line print (again, too slow ...):

 

 

 

The July theme is heavily inspired by subjective experiences I made in the past. Such significant changes are ahead of me in due time and therefore I came back to one of my most important and most influencing quotes:

ONE LIFE

 

Be it Seize the day or One life, choose your quote and either contribute directly to a positive life of human being or indirectly by protecting our one and only habitat Earth (or do both ).

Never stop being active, never stop being innovative, never stop thinking outside the box. Have fun using your fountain pens, let the ink flow as if it is the last of all days!

 

See you later in … hmm, don’t know yet.

My summer vacation starts next week. If I manage to produce a July result in time, I will post. Otherwise, I may not be back before end of August. Means: definitely no Ink Challenge in August and a reduced Set for September, if any.

However, I have plans for October ...  

 

Have a nice summer vacation!  🎉

[yazeh]

@InesFthanks for sharing your pens, your inks and most importantly the thoughts that carry them.  Congratulations on your new infinity drawer and your new  Eeness petrol ink ( Essri the Snek will be jealous ). 

To capture oxidation, I have my phone ready and take a picture while I write. Not easy, but feasible. Another solution is to have it on a small tripod, and use the shutter mode and hope for the best, or wait in the line for @LizEFdoes her review with Claw. 😂

I often reflect on your quote One Life. I love learning about myths and ancient cultures. The more I delve deeper, I see the connections that binds us with invisible threads. Bonne vacances. 🙏🙏🙏

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, InesF said:

...it was the pen for my ink consumption measurements.

All hail the Waterman Perspective Champagne!

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

The Tintenlabor Petrol IG 1 g/L iron was a special production after I told David about my most loved colours. Oh man, what arrived at me was a bulls eye!

Hooray!   Glad you're enjoying it.  Very cool of David to make you a custom ink.

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

Therefore here my try for oxidation photos (my respect for @yazeh has increased dramatically; now I know how difficult oxidation photos are to be made!  ). Much has she (young Padavan InesF) to learn!

It's really hard.

 

3 hours ago, yazeh said:

To capture oxidation, I have my phone ready and take a picture while I write. Not easy, but feasible. Another solution is to have it on a small tripod, and use the shutter mode and hope for the best, or wait in the line for @LizEFdoes her review with Claw. 😂

Record a video, and then take a screenshot from the video - though there's not always a single screen that shows exactly what you want, so the camera taking continuous photos is probably a better idea.

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

The July theme is heavily inspired by subjective experiences I made in the past. Such significant changes are ahead of me in due time and therefore I came back to one of my most important and most influencing quotes:

ONE LIFE

 

Be it Seize the day or One life, choose your quote and either contribute directly to a positive life of human being or indirectly by protecting our one and only habitat Earth (or do both ).

Never stop being active, never stop being innovative, never stop thinking outside the box. Have fun using your fountain pens, let the ink flow as if it is the last of all days!

3 hours ago, yazeh said:

I often reflect on your quote One Life. I love learning about myths and ancient cultures. The more I delve deeper, I see the connections that binds us with invisible threads.

  One life for you, one life for me, one life for all of us together!

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

My summer vacation starts next week.

Enjoy your vacation!

[InesF]

16 hours ago, yazeh said:

InesFthanks for sharing your pens, your inks and most importantly the thoughts that carry them.  Congratulations on your new infinity drawer and your new  Eeness petrol ink ( Essri the Snek will be jealous ). 

Thank you so much, you are most welcome! 🙏

 

16 hours ago, yazeh said:

To capture oxidation, I have my phone ready and take a picture while I write. Not easy, but feasible. Another solution is to have it on a small tripod

Indeed! I started with the tripod installation but failed to either having the writing area in frame and in focus OR being able to see the writing area while writing ... 😮   Lazy me, I figured out that this may be my best if not the last chance to post the July Set, it was a bit late for experimenting. 🙄 I will do some try-and-error over the summer!   

 

16 hours ago, yazeh said:

I often reflect on your quote One Life. I love learning about myths and ancient cultures. The more I delve deeper, I see the connections that binds us with invisible threads. Bonne vacances. 🙏🙏🙏

That means a lot for me. 🙏 Thank you!  

Have a good summertime!

[InesF]

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

All hail the Waterman Perspective Champagne!

Thank you, @LizEF! 🙏 I keep it safe, look at it almost daily and use it only rarely.

 

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

Record a video, and then take a screenshot from the video - though there's not always a single screen that shows exactly what you want, so the camera taking continuous photos is probably a better idea.

Yes! That's the best way how to do. As described above, I was lazy at first and then in hurry to do it somehow ... I promise improvement until autumn! 🤞   

 

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

  One life for you, one life for me, one life for all of us together!

 One planet!

 

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

Enjoy your vacation!

Thank you! I promise, I will enjoy! 👍 

Have a good summertime!

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, InesF said:

I started with the tripod installation but failed to either having the writing area in frame and in focus OR being able to see the writing area while writing ... 😮  

Yep, a tripod is a less than ideal solution, so is a handheld phone.  My recommendation is a jig, but not everyone has the resources for it... 

 

 

A tripod with a boom arm would also work...  Something like this amazon listing shows.  Kind of expensive, but if you can afford it, way better than contorting yourself every time you need to make photos / videos. ETA: You would want to mount your camera/phone at the end of the boom, facing the writing surface...  (Photo in case someone can't load Amazon US:)

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

Have a good summertime!

Thanks!

 

[InesF]

17 hours ago, LizEF said:

My recommendation is a jig, but not everyone has the resources for it... 

Thank you, @LizEF, for the photo. A +1 👍 for the individual solution! Creativity always finds a way!

 

17 hours ago, LizEF said:

You would want to mount your camera/phone at the end of the boom, facing the writing surface...  (Photo in case someone can't load Amazon US:)

Compared to yours, this metal "almost" robot doesn't impress me much.   

 

I did already mount my mini iPad once at the end of a desk lamp (instead of the bulb). It worked well for watching videos, but wiggled when I touched the table.

I still think about my normal photo-tripod, extended with a sideways arm (can be as simple as a wooden stick). The tripod should not touch the writing desk ...

It may come. But first comes summer vacation!   

[LizEF]

6 hours ago, InesF said:

Compared to yours, this metal "almost" robot doesn't impress me much.   

  The problem with the fixed jig is that it's designed to fit exactly one phone (as in the brand and model and camera lens position) in exactly one orientation at exactly one height.  It's useful since I'm doing exactly the same thing every Tuesday, but eventually that phone will die...  So, depending on the needed flexibility, frequency, consistency, etc., the tripod might be better...

 

6 hours ago, InesF said:

but wiggled when I touched the table

Yes.  This is the biggest problem with anything that has a bendable arm, or even that has only one "anchor" point - wiggle, sway, flexing - all a problem.

 

6 hours ago, InesF said:

extended with a sideways arm (can be as simple as a wooden stick)

Assuming you can find a secure way to attach said wooden stick to your tripod.   They do make boom arms that will mount to the usual tripod camera-mount screw.

 

6 hours ago, InesF said:

The tripod should not touch the writing desk ...

Another challenging part, but yes, this can help prevent camera-shake.

[yazeh]

Amazing setup @LizEF.  I understand why Klaw wants to get into this room. 😸

[LizEF]

5 hours ago, yazeh said:

Amazing setup @LizEF.  I understand why Klaw wants to get into this room. 😸

[InesF]

Monthly Ink Challenge IV – September 2025

 

Back from a seven weeks vacation, I have a lot to read now – missed so many activities here at FPN! It feels good that the love for pen, ink and paper is spread so broad and new creative results are produced on a daily base.

My inner clock ticks a bit different than it did before this vacation – I brought some distance between me and the daily routinely rush of my job. The hot summer time cooled me down a bit.  

 

Building a September Ink Set or not was on razors edge. There is one and it consists of the following four inks and fountain pens:

Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire – in Pelikan M605 White-White puck

Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz – in Aurora Optima Caleidoscope EF

Ferris Wheel Press Bluegrass Velvet – in Waterman Exclusive F

Tintenlabor Purpur-Schwarz – in Waterman Perspective F

 

Here are swatches and writing samples together with the fountain pens on Fritz Schimpf letter pad (slightly ebony paper):

 

 

Some words about the selected fountain pens and inks:

The Pelikan M605 White-White was a logical buy after I started to develop my love for the white M60x fountain pen series. I bought this one with an M nib that wrote, no surprise, much too wet and much too broad. Flattening top and bottom of the tipping into a disc, similar to an ice-hokey puck, tamed it, gave it some unique character and pushed it into my top five fountain pens. I soon recognised that grey and blue-grey inks fit the best to the white body. But I liked to see how the pen performs with one of the unbeloved Prussian Blue inks. I filled it with Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire and loved line quality, shading and colour immediately. I think I will keep pen and ink until the bottle is empty.

 

I bought the Aurora Optima Caleidoscope already some years ago with a goccia nib – and soon I developed another love-hate relation among the pens in my collection. The Optima pen body is nothing less than perfect for my hands in shape and size and is also perfect from a technical point of view. The goccia nib draws good looking lines only with a narrow range of inks – too narrow for being excellent. I ordered a replacement nib in EF recently which turned this Optima into a daily use pen. Yellow, ochre and brown inks fit the best to the pen body, therefore the choice of Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz, another one of the underused inks in my collection, was hue-wise obvious and performance-wise a lucky choice. As it looks now, I intend to use also this pen and ink for an extended period of time.

 

In search for something green as a complement to the other two pens, I started the process by selecting the Waterman Exclusive. This slim pen is not only elegant looking, with its stiff nib (with ebonite feed) it is an excellent writer and therefore quite high in my ranking. It does best with inks in the medium surface tension range, but this time I liked to fill it with Ferris Wheel Press Bluegrass Velvet. I gave the hue of this ink priority over its surface tension. The ink lines can be a bit pale at times, but are well defined with exquisite shading.

 

All together I was satisfied with the combination that makes these three inks into a harmonic set. However, the colour set appeared to be a bit too cool, almost autumn like. Something that can represent the last summer days was missing. I filled two more pens, one with a red and the other with a purple ink. To my surprise, the purple, not the most warm colour, won!

 

It is the Waterman Perspective (in black), the sister of my lockdown „ONE LIFE‟ Perspective Champagne that, finally, complemented the September set. There is nothing different to say about the black Perspective except that the F nib draws better defined lines than the sisters M nib. The pen is filled with the not so well lubricated version of Tintenlabor Purpur-Schwarz (IG, 3 g/L iron) which oxidizes on paper into a dark, muted purple, luckily not into a dull grey nor into a black. The reason may be in the dry writing nature of the Waterman nib. The result is a balanced somehow warm somehow cool colour of ripe damsons that contributes to a harmonic September Set.

 

 

The September theme is an echo of my summer vacation:

VOLATILE TIME

 

 

Risking to bore you, I like to repeat: Never stop being active, never stop being innovative, never stop thinking outside the box. Have fun using your fountain pens, let the ink flow as if it is the last of all days!

 

See you later during September.

Enjoy summer, welcome autumn!

[LizEF]

Welcome back, @InesF!  Sounds like your vacation was successful!   I hope it was enjoyable, too!

 

I see you fell for another Tintenlabor.   Good choice!  Nice set of inks.

 

6 hours ago, InesF said:

The September theme is an echo of my summer vacation:

VOLATILE TIME

Well, now we want pictures - or a story, or something!    I'm hoping it was a happy volatile.

[yazeh]

Thanks @InesF for sharing with us, your ink, fountain pen matching process. Indeed the colours are quite on the cool end of the spectrum, reminding me of September colors, more pronounced. What an intriguing prompt, volatile, compound, society, world? Looking forward to it. 🙏