Blog

Rating: 4.0 March 22, 2010 J. Herbin Café des Îsles is an aptly named brown ink, as, more than anything, it resembles the color of coffee. Other reviewers have mentioned its similarity to café au lait or to espresso, depending on the wetness of the line, and I find the comparison apt. Imagine dipping one’s pen in a cup of coffee and then writing – that’s the color of this ink – and the varying strengths of one’s beverage are well represented by the low saturation and significant shading that it exhibits.

Rating: 4.0 March 18, 2010 Iroshizuku Kon-peki is a beautiful, azure blue ink that captures the tempestuous nature of the wild ocean. It is a highly saturated ink that exhibits a surprising level of shading – representing the light blue of the ocean surface and the deep blue of the bottom of the sea. Because it is highly saturated, it creates a bold line on both white and off-white paper.

I am one of those odd people that think that snails are cute.

A cat and a mouse went waltzing one day They danced round the floor hand in hand Said the cat to the mouse, “They’re playing our song, I think this is our favorite band.” The mouse wore a top hat and bow tie For he was always impeccably dressed His whiskers were combed out and straightened And his shiny black shoes matched his vest The cat wore a ball gown of violet

Rating: 3.5 March 13, 2010 J. Herbin Vert Empire is a forest green ink with grey undertones. To me, it is invocative of a pine forest in the hazy light of morning. It is a wet ink with low saturation, so it exhibits a tremendous tonal range, depending on the pen and paper used. In most of my pens it displays significant shading, whereas in a wet writer it lays down a very dark line.

The trees are crying. I can hear them. Their screams fill the air and echo through the valley, each howl louder than the last, more painful than the last, building and climbing and riding on the last as the crests and troughs of the sound waves amplify each other here and cancel each other there – a barely constrained tempo, a barely constrained tempest and there is nothing I can do for them but listen.

Rating: 3.0 March 07, 2010 Noodler’s (Bulletproof) Black is the first bottled ink that I added to my ink collection. I had heard many good things about the ink, and while many of those things are true, there is one major issue that is difficult to overcome. First, Noodler’s Black is as black as night. Pitch black. When poets refer to an inky blackness, this is the ink that they have in mind.

Rating: 3.5 March 06, 2010 Lamy Blue was the first fountain pen ink I used, as it came in the cartridge included with my very first fountain pen – a Lamy Safari. I liked it enough that I purchased a bottle and it remains in my regular rotation. The ink itself is a prototypical blue with moderate shading and saturation. It’s the kind of blue most people would think of when thinking of a blue ballpoint pen.

Rating: 5.0 March 03, 2010 J. Herbin Poussière de Lune (Moon dust) is a deep violet color that reminds me of the shadow cast by a lunar eclipse. It exhibits moderate shading in wider nibs, but is remarkably consistent in a fine nib. It is a moderately saturated ink – especially compared to other J. Herbin inks I own, which tend toward low saturation – so its overall color is affected by the paper it is used with.

Rating: 3.5 March 01, 2010 Iroshizuku Kiri-same (Misty Dark Gray) by Pilot is the essence of storm clouds in a bottle. It runs the gamut from light to dark gray, as it exhibits significant shading in wider nibs. In fine nibs, it tends to run very light – almost too light for normal use. Like other Iroshizuku inks, it flows well, and I have had no issues using it across a variety of pens and nibs.