Colorful Italian Pens - And The Matching Ink?

[TomJKT]

A fabulous orange Delta Dolce Vita sometimes comes with a yellow-orange ink. Does anybody actually write with this color? What are the ink colors to put into a pen like the blue, green, red (burgundy), yellow, orange, grayish, whitish, Omas, Auroras, Deltas,…? And what makes the ink color match the pen in your opinion? I put a blue ink in a blue pen. How tasty is that? But a brown ink in a blue pen - it hurts the eyes or does it? Any guidelines or proven pen/ink color matches to offer? Pictures?

Can I use all these colors in the orange FP?

 

 

Sorry for the crappy phone picture.

[Strang]

Use any colour you like in your Dolce Vita. I do. But for future reference, if you insist on trying to turn this pen into an eye-dropper filler (as people keep wanting to do,) many inks will stain the inside of the barrel and will change the lovely look of the celluloid. Stick with the converter!

[langere]

I agree that one should match the colors - it doesn't have to be the same, but it is good to have at least complementary colors - this is part of the fun of fountain pens!

 

For example, with my brown pens I might put a green or vice versa. Try it! You will have even more fun that way.

 

Erick

[Vendome]

I agree with langere.

 

I started off having the same inks to match the pen colour, (more so with ball pens). My first fountain pens were 2 Parker I.M models, a black with GT and a blue with CT.

When I started using more colourful inks, I put Waterman Purple in the Black IM and Waterman Turquoise in the Blue IM and they wrote beautifully and looked good on the page.

 

I upgraded my I.M pens to Parker NOS vintage models and now use a 45 flighter with purple ink and a grey 88 as my turquoise ink pen.

 

You do have more leeway with the colour of inks in neutral pen colours such as white, steel, silver or gold, but I still prefer to match a dark colour ink to a dark colour pen and vice-versa with lighter shades. However, it is good to have a contrast ink.

 

I recently got a Parker Vector Pinstripe fountain pen to use with Quink Black/Blue cartridges and it does make a good writing combo.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parker-Vector-PINSTRIPE-Fountain-S0823160/dp/B002LUMK96/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368059063&sr=8-2&keywords=parker+pinstripe+pen

[TomJKT]

Yes! Of course, I forgot about the color wheel. Thanks for reminding me, langere and Vendome. Actually in my orange FP is a lighter blue ink right now. I must have chosen it rather intuitively. I went to this website, where you can play around with the color schemes and put in the main color of my FPs. E.g., the brown colors (mixing them) of my marbled FP, and -surprise-surprise- should match with a dark shade green ink (hello, langere! ). I went through some pictures of FPs on the web, picked up their colors and found the green Pelikan should go great with blue-purple ink, the red Pelikan with a saturated green-green, and the tortoise Pelikan with a black-blue ink. Since I got a few color inks, I have a good reason for buying some more matching FPs now! The light blue should be a good match:

 

 

(edited for uploading the picture)

Edited May 10, 2013 by TomJKT

[TomJKT]

@Strang, thanks for the advice! Fortunately this pen is a piston filler, so I hope the ink will do no harm to the barrel color.

[kazoolaw]

There is one pen I almost always have "matching" ink in: Omas Autummo with Stipula Verde Muschiato ink.

.

[TomJKT]

Gary,

I took your pen's color from a website picture and tried to find the matching ink.

As you might see from my picture, either the blue ink (complimentary) or the olive color ink (analogous) should be a good match as well as the other colors in the analogous scheme.

Then I looked up your ink's color and it seems you choose exactly this olive tone.

 

This is sort of CSI for FPs

 

 

[TomJKT]

I had a day off and it was too hot to go out, so I spend a little time to learn about color schemes and how it relates to matching the color of the ink with the color of the fountain pen.

Again I picked some colors from fountain pens, Aurora Optimas, and had a look to the matching complimentary and the analogous colors, see my pictures. It's quite impossible to pick the 'correct' color of a pen since there are too many factors involved, e.g. the 'wrong' colors of a photograph or the many colors of a marbled pen. So I tried to come close at least to the colors I 'know' of these pens and which seems to me the dominant colors. Not a very academic approach and certainly very disputable but nonetheless I find some results interesting and I took something home for me.

Well, first here are my experiments:

 

 

 

From what I take home as a few conclusions:

None of these pens are really suitable for my Jonathan Swift green ink, which is a sort of foggy-green. Though I might use Sailors Jentle green, e.g. in a Primavera.

If I need to edit text with Sailor Jentle red, I better choose the 75th anniversary instead of the Primavera pen, the latter would need a red which tends more to purple.

The Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo blue goes into the Mare, the Pelikan 4001 into the Sole.

I have to throw away the Iroshizuku tsukushi brown ink or to buy a new pen! But I know where to fill in the Sailor Jentle Blue-Black and I should pre-order MB Albert Einstein ink (don't you worry, I did that already in wise anticipation).

And the overall conclusion, which I just discuss with my beautiful wife, you have never too many pens and inks!

(I got the feeling I should post this rather now to the ink forum…)

Happy inking!

[gentlewarrior6]

Yes! Of course, I forgot about the color wheel. Thanks for reminding me, langere and Vendome. Actually in my orange FP is a lighter blue ink right now. I must have chosen it rather intuitively. I went to this website, where you can play around with the color schemes and put in the main color of my FPs. E.g., the brown colors (mixing them) of my marbled FP, and -surprise-surprise- should match with a dark shade green ink (hello, langere! ). I went through some pictures of FPs on the web, picked up their colors and found the green Pelikan should go great with blue-purple ink, the red Pelikan with a saturated green-green, and the tortoise Pelikan with a black-blue ink. Since I got a few color inks, I have a good reason for buying some more matching FPs now! The light blue should be a good match:

inkcolor.jpg

 

 

(edited for uploading the picture)

Curious as to what these inks in your post are.....

 

Thanks!

[TomJKT]

 

Yes! Of course, I forgot about the color wheel. Thanks for reminding me, langere and Vendome. Actually in my orange FP is a lighter blue ink right now. I must have chosen it rather intuitively. I went to this website, where you can play around with the color schemes and put in the main color of my FPs. E.g., the brown colors (mixing them) of my marbled FP, and -surprise-surprise- should match with a dark shade green ink (hello, langere! ). I went through some pictures of FPs on the web, picked up their colors and found the green Pelikan should go great with blue-purple ink, the red Pelikan with a saturated green-green, and the tortoise Pelikan with a black-blue ink. Since I got a few color inks, I have a good reason for buying some more matching FPs now! The light blue should be a good match:

inkcolor.jpg

 

 

(edited for uploading the picture)

Curious as to what these inks in your post are.....

 

Thanks!

 

These colors are only colors, no ink colors. These colors are colors the ink should have to match the color of the pen! So the idea is, to find inks, which represent the colors or come close to them. Hope I did not confuse you with these explanations.

[raging.dragon]

@Strang, thanks for the advice! Fortunately this pen is a piston filler, so I hope the ink will do no harm to the barrel color.

 

I haven't heard of Delta piston fillers getting stained, though I'd recommend avoiding inks with a reputation for staining.

[Mkim]

These colors are only colors, no ink colors. These colors are colors the ink should have to match the color of the pen! So the idea is, to find inks, which represent the colors or come close to them. Hope I did not confuse you with these explanations.

 

Lol hey Tom!

I just saw these posts...and am happy to know I am not the only one that does this and take it to another level by doing it in this meticulous investigative manner...

 

When I was trying to select a good ink candidate for the Green Arco Paragon now on its way to you...I ended up with a nice well behaved purple (Try PR Purple mojo) or bright orange-vermillion (Iroshizuku Fuyu-Gaki). these colours could be seen more as split-complimentary colours rather than primary complimentary. I find that split complimentary colours works better for me when inking pens, since they do provide contrast but in a more subtle and soothing way.

 

Anyway...Let me know what you end up it!

 

Cheers,

Michael

[basterma]

I just never put this much thought into the ink color. Blue or black is fine for me. I prefer blue so I can use ink eradicator pens since most of what I write are is lesson plans that get changed a bit.

 

That preference likely arises out of the fact that you don't get many colors to choose from in Egypt.

 

I honestly don't match ink with pens, because the lower end pens that dominate my collection tend not to inspire spending more on ink than the pen is worth.

 

I have admiration for the lengths you all went to discuss the topic. It made for interesting reading.