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Pictures should be ok now Ink View: Lake Michigan Summer - Papier Plumes Chicago Pen Show Exclusive! I first came to know about this and the Ivy 108 a couple of weeks ago while conversing with Papier Plume on new upcoming inks. At that point the inks were already created and I was just at the tail end of it. I was lucky enough to receive a small sample of each. As the main batch hadn't been done yet, I got what was left from what was sent for review. Still I was happy to tryout these inks, especially since I dont have an Ink Hookup at the Chicago Show to get me some these ink bottles. Still! Many thanks to Papier Plume for providing the sample. I meant to have this out a few days back but I was tasked with painting our Condo.... and lets say it has been time consuming to say the least. I do hope you enjoy reading this (re)view as much as I enjoyed writing it. A small evident warning: This is a limited ink to 60 Bottles only available at the Chicago Pen Show. I do not know any plans for re-releasing these inks in the future, one can hope and I asked! Lake Michigan Summer (LMS) The Name and the Ink When I look at an ink I want to know if there is any story behind it, this could be a simple or could be an elaborate story, but in a way it helps me signal out an ink from many others that could be close in terms of color or properties. The Lake Michigan is the third largest of the Great Lakes (when measured by water surface) and the only Great Lake located entirely in the United States. The Lake Michigan Summer ink was meant to represent the colors of Lake Michigan in the Summer! Which when looking at the pictures you can find if the lake it does look like the ink spoilers I think it does. Here is a couple picture of the Lake Michigan in the summer http://i.imgur.com/qaYhBb1.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/D38WRN7.jpg How does the Lake Michigan gets its colors? As per some research : The blue is the color given by the light hitting the water with hues varying as the light hits sediment brought to the surface when strong winds churned the lakes.In the same way the green tint is the light hitting the algae and sea weed, reflecting the green(from the plants, which are filled with clorophile) from the waterHere is where the name meets the ink, the combination of the reflecting lights gives off a blue-green color. You can see that the LMS would probably be a teal color ink and it is. Here is the picture of the bottles http://i.imgur.com/79VVl8c.jpg Lets see the swab in the Mnemosyne card: http://i.imgur.com/WEkUXu4.jpg This ink looks consistent across different nib sizes (from EF to Stub), with main differences from one side to the other on shading and for some papers pooling. So on to the tools: Pens: Sailor Realo Medium, Franklin Christoph Blade Turk (Mark Bacas), Visconti HS Bronze Stub and Nemosyne Broad Waverly (Mark Bacas) Paper Tomoe River, Rhodia, Tomoe River 68 gr, Clairefountaine Thriomphe (CF), traditional copy paper, Velum paper and Oxford Optic 90gsm paper. Tests: Flow, saturation, shading, sheen, bleed-through, see-through/show-through, feathering and pooling. With other tests such as water, bleach and alcohol and dry times. Sometimes it will be a yes/no answer, sometimes 1-5 (1 being poor, 5 being excellent) CrossOver Card As with my other reviews here is the ink behaving across all papers . http://i.imgur.com/qL2dT6v.jpg You can see that each column is representative of the paper used. Thoughts on the ink-paper behavior · Flow: Flow is good, consistent in most papers, tiny feathering in traditional copy paper. · Saturation: Medium/Heavy, which is in part responsible for the ink color to be consistent · Sheen: there is a slight hint of sheen, it is mostly sheen when the ink is laid down heavily on paper i.e Tomoe River Both and Rhodia. · Shade: Shading is between 3 and 4 not bad shading not super shading and you can see it across most papers, vellum and copy paper excluded. · Bleed-through: I saw bleed through on copy paper and Tomoe River Both. This is a wet ink and if the paper is not well coated or thick you might find some bleed through. It was tiny tiny on the Tomoe River , but worth mentioning. · Show-through: Same as Bleed Through, This is a wet ink and if the paper is not well coated or thick you might find some show through. However in TR paper it is not enough (IMHO) to not be able to write on both sides. · Feathering: fairly good on fathering, with some on copy paper and some on Clairefountaine which incidentally I do get feathering on this paper with some inks. · Pooling: woohoo hoo you can have some pooling! TR being the best and Rhodia being the worst. No pooling on Vellum or CopyP · Water Resistance: Tests (eye dropper and smear ) show that the ink is not waterproof, and what is left id very faint making difficult to recover some of the writing if need be. · Alcohol Resistance: Very consistent across. You would be able to recover from this one almost no effect. · Bleach Resistance: None, Zip , nada. Ink was here and now is gone! Magic! · Dry Times: As noted this is a wet ink and the drying times were high with all, but copy paper, ranging from 20-30 secs. Cleaning was fairly quick and straight forward. Comparison Here are some other inks for comparison, http://i.imgur.com/NX7kmtb.jpg?1 From the top and then left to right: The biggest contendent ,in my opinion, is Diamine steel blue. Steel blue is darker and a little bit more saturated. Ink ComparisonSteel Blue - Diaminevery close to Lake MIchigan Summer - with a darker tone a a little more saturatedBlue Steel - Noodlersa lot more blue than green good shadingLake Michigan Summer- Papier Plumen/aIG. Turquoise - KWZIa good ink close to Blue steel Mentol Green - KWZIpictures does not show it but it is a good teal more close to LMS and Steel Blue than anything else Fire & Ice - Rober Osterlighter blue with red sheen And here is a quick sketch using Lake Michigan Summer http://i.imgur.com/RgeEAyR.jpg Here is some Cursive and Block writing for reference. http://i.imgur.com/hAJ6aJa.jpg Opinion I like teals and I dont have many of them, Im still waiting for Zeeblau from Akkermans Dutch Masters, which is currently in the mail. But teals are in that in between place of not being green or not being blue and for those ink lovers there is no in between for these types of colors : you either like it or you dont. I know some Ink lovers that will sit on either side of this opinion J That being said , from an objective perspective, this ink is okish for using on a work environment, I like it and I can find it to have while Im making notes. Everyday use is also not a bad thing, although I dont see this being an everywhere ink. The shading on this ink is great, whats more, the ink does pool giving that nice border effect and when concentrated and with the right paper it can even give you some hints of sheen. Someone said to me that sheen has to do with oxidization, I dont know how much of that is true, but it makes sense. After all sheen happens as the inks dries up. As always Im very grateful that I got this sample, and would be happy to have this ink as part of my collection even if it just as what is left of my sample Availability As noted at the beginning of this view this is an exclusive ink to the Chicago Pen Show and limited to 60 bottles. Which is an issue for me as I really like this ink, and I got a really small sample (only have a couple of ml left!) and Im actually going to Chicago but a month later! If you are going to the pen show, or have a friend that is picking up a bottle for you, and you are a fan of greens I strongly recommend it. Papier Plume notifies their ink availability through their newsletter first, then Instagram, then Facebook, and finally twitter (in that order). Thank you again for keeping up with me up to this point !