Inky T O D - What Is Your Method For Keeping Track Of Your Inks?

[amberleadavis]

Sinistral1 and Taz, I expect to see your posts here. I was asked recently, how I know what ink I like and what colors I like... serious, how do you know?

 

Let me say that I didn't get heavily involved into inky thinking until fairly recently. For two years, I lurked on FPN. My first year on FPN, I was busy trying to figure out how to make FPs work for me. Once I had working pens, I tried to find a way to get involved. I followed advice, and I bought a bunch of samples. I used those samples for my first fade tests. Only in the last year did I start doing reviews. I wanted to know why I liked an ink. These reviews help me decide what works for me.

 

However, in the last three years, I've tried hundreds of samples. I went from a handful of bottles to more than 100 bottles of ink.

 

So, how do I keep track of it? Well, I keep track of it by keeping my reviews and comparisons online.

 

However, some of our other members have developed much more efficient ways to know what they have, what they have tried and what they like. Hopefully, they will tell us more.

[amberleadavis]

Oh, here is where the fade results end up ... physically. Digitally, they are everywhere.

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Tests/Fade/2012/Notebook/slides/2013-08_inky_07.jpg

[sgage]

Well, no method for keeping track of inks is needed here - I have only 4 (I'll have 5 tomorrow). I mostly just like to write - that's what my pens are for - so I'm settling in on a black (J. Herbin Perle Noire, OMG!), a blue-black (Diamine Twilight on TR cream, sweet!), and a blue. In the blue department, I've only tried Lamy Blue, but I've got a bottle of J. Herbin Eclat du Saphir coming tomorrow, along with an Ocean Blue Al-Star.

 

But there sure are a lot of inks out there... I'm not really interested in all the different colors, but if I did become interested, I think I'd get color-coded pens to go with them.

 

But for the time being, I'm just a simple writer ;-)

[Sinistral1]

I am currently working on putting all my ink samples and bottles on these little cards that will be sorted by the rainbow color spectrum on a ring. Each card will have the identical information that I want to know about the ink, like sheen, shading, etc, as well as how it behaves on six different papers with both a wet, flexible nib and an extra fine firm nib. I'm twenty down and only have 130 more to do!

 

Edited to add: You can see what I'm doing if you search for "Flex Art Review" in the Ink Review forum.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Sinistral1

[Octo]

I work an ink friendly journal from both ends.

 

From the front there is a page for each pen and each ink color used in that pen is written below.

 

From the back there is a page for each ink and each pen used with that ink is used below.

 

It's sort of a double-entry system so I can easily see what ink works well in a particular pen or see what pen a particular ink likes.

[amberleadavis]

I am currently working on putting all my ink samples and bottles on these little cards that will be sorted by the rainbow color spectrum on a ring. Each card will have the identical information that I want to know about the ink, like sheen, shading, etc, as well as how it behaves on six different papers with both a wet, flexible nib and an extra fine firm nib. I'm twenty down and only have 130 more to do!

 

Edited to add: You can see what I'm doing if you search for "Flex Art Review" in the Ink Review forum.

 

 

Can you post one or two here for the newbies to see?

[amberleadavis]

I work an ink friendly journal from both ends.

 

From the front there is a page for each pen and each ink color used in that pen is written below.

 

From the back there is a page for each ink and each pen used with that ink is used below.

 

It's sort of a double-entry system so I can easily see what ink works well in a particular pen or see what pen a particular ink likes.

 

 

Cool! Do you have a picture or two?

[Runnin_Ute]

I have a #12 Rhodia dot pad that I write each time I ink what is in each pen with the nib each pen has.

 

Date

Ink

Pen/nib combo

[Bookman]

I used to put a lot of effort into pen-ink-paper tests. Now I just keep a pen-ink lineup diary. I use one side of a leaf. Inks are listed in block letters from top to bottom near the right margin. The order is alphabetical by brand. Pens are directly opposite their inks along the left margin and written in cursive. In between each pen and ink entry is a 5x10mm closely-drawn up-and-down zig-zag pattern to show the ink. I rifle through my journal several times a week, looking for specific pieces of information, and when I do this I invariably see some entry along the way that makes me curious about which pen-ink combination wrote it. This is the main reason I keep a pen-ink lineup diary. For the back-of-the-drawer inks that seldom get used I like to know when I last used a particular ink or when I last used it in a specific pen.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Bookman

[Sinistral1]

[inkstainedruth]

I use a couple of different methods. I have an ink journal (actually now into the second volume), which is one of those inexpensive Piccadilly sketch books from Barnes and Noble. I also have several files on my laptop: one is a list of inks where I have notations about which ones are only samples, which I would want to get more of, etc (listed by color family); one is a list of which pens are inked up (and with what); a spreadsheet of inks I want to order (or consider ordering) and from where (inks listed by manufacturer, and with columns listing which company has that brand/color and for how much); and a table of sample vials (more or less by color family) showing which ink is in which sample vial tray.

Okay, I admit to being OCD....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[keo]

When I first ventured down the fountain pen rabbit hole, I started keeping two notebooks with writing samples for each ink bottle and sample I had - one page in each notebook for each ink. One notebook is a Rhodia (my "good paper" notebook) and the other is an el-cheapo (my "crummy paper" notebook). The idea was to have a record of each ink I tried, and how each behaved on different kinds of paper.

 

Two years in, I started another notebook (Clairefontaine, if you care), where I write one line (date, ink, pen) each time I ink a pen. Don't remember where I heard about doing this, but I rather like the idea and wish I had started it from the beginning.

 

Now I have started writing a 4x6 index card for each ink. Got the idea from this thread, except my cards are the made-in-India cards from the dollar store. I am using a dedicated "index card writing pen" so I have consistency from card to card, as opposed to the notebooks where I use whatever pen I feel like at the time (except for black samples which are always written with my TWSBI 540 F). Also, with the cards it is easier to compare two inks - just hold the cards next to each other rather than flipping pages in a notebook. Now if BamaPen would just make a box that could hold a couple hundred of those cards... (I'm at 2 right now - that's 2, not 200 - but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead.)

Edited May 15, 2014 by keo

[dcwaites]

I saw recently that someone uses file cards, perhaps 4x6?.

You need to find some that are FP friendly, most are too thick to bleed, but do feather badly.

We have a brand local to Australia, called Olympic, that are good.

 

You can have sortable titles, written samples and swabs from cotton buds (Q-Tips?).

[Blazing]

I only have Lamy Blue in the original bottle of ink, Faber Castell Blue cartridge [came with my Loom] and a Diamine Black Cartridge.

[dneal]

I can't recally the blog at the moment, but there was a review of this ink journal

 

It's a good idea, but I'm not sure there's a need to buy these pre-printed. I took a Leuchtturm pocket notebook and did the same thing, only writing the format (ink, flow, etc...) similarly to the example in the link. I use a Leuchtturm because the pages are numbered and there is a table of contents portion to annotate what ink is sampled on whichever page.

[amberleadavis]

Hmm... that's kind of cute.

 

Probably too organized for me.

 

I scan my inks. I sort the digital pictures - color, date and manufacturer.

[PaperDarts]

I am in awe of the more systematic ink logs/journals/records I've seen on the FPN but my own record is an unlined Clairfontaine notebook in which I keep track of which pen contains which ink. Usually I just note the date when I refilled a pen, or flushed it. Lately I've been adding when I filled that pen last. Sometimes I amuse/horrify myself by listing each pen that is currently inked.

 

A slightly different pen/ink record I've been using lately - when I get any writing paper I haven't used before, I take one sheet and try out all of my currently inked pens on it, noting which ones work really well with that surface, colour, or what have you. I leave that sheet with the supply of paper, and when I take it out I can see which nibs and inks are likely to work well with it. Saves crumpling up pages and hurling them around the room due to excess feathering, bleedthrough, scratchy dryness, or just plain blah appearance.

[amberleadavis]

Okay, well, I confess, I also have a set of index cards going.....

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Inked_Today/slides/2013-Ink_844.jpg

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/2014-Inklings/slides/2014-Ink_377.jpg

[_Stormin_]

I don't have enough to need a sophisticated method of curation. I can simply take a 1" dot sticker, write the ink name (in the ink in question) on the dot, do a smear as well, and place this on the lid of the bottle.

[Vgimlet]

Keep TRACK????

 

Actually I was just thinking about this today. Trying to decide if I want to do cards in a box, or just a list in my ink journal or something else. Because of course my goal is to try a LOT of different inks and colors, and I want to keep track, especially since I want to buy bottles of the inks I like the best. I thought about doing a database, but at the same time, being able to see the actual colors can be helpful...