L'artisan Pastellier Callifolio - Bleu Atlantique

[namrehsnoom]

L'Artisan Pastellier Callifolio - Bleu Atlantique

 

L’Artisan Pastellier is a small company in southern France that specialises in natural pigments, and offers customers authentic and reliable products in beautiful colours based on mineral or vegetable pigments. In a collaboration with Loic Rainouard from Styloplume.net, the chemist Didier Boinnard from L’Artisan Pastellier created the line of Callifolio fountain pen inks. These pastel-colored inks are traditionally crafted, and can be freely mixed and matched. Overall these inks are only moderately saturated, and have low water-resistance. The inks were specifically designed to work well with all types of paper, and all types of fountain pens.

 

Being pastel-tinted, these inks have a watercolor-like appearance, and are not only fine inks for journaling, but are also really excellent inks for doodling & drawing. I only recently discovered them, and they are already the inks I gravitate towards for personal journaling.

 

 

In this review the spotlight is on Bleu Atlantique, one of the many blue inks of the series. The blue Callifolio inks are named after rivers, lakes and oceans – this cerulean-type blue gets its name from the Atlantic Ocean (not the wild northern atlantic which in my imagination is more of a blue-grey, but the tropical one near Haiti – think of a mid-summer day on a lagoon beach). This is a really nice true sky-blue ink, without green undertones. I’m a big fan of such blues and colour-wise, Bleu Atlantique did not disappoint. I like it very much.

 

There is of course no way to avoid a comparison with the two other well-loved cerulean-type blues – iroshizuku kon-peki and Pelikan Edelstein Topaz. Below is a small swab and writing comparison on Fantasticpaper. Bleu Atlantique leans more towards Topaz, but is a less saturated ink with a more watercolour-like appearance. Myself – I still think Topaz is the absolute king. But if you collect sky-blue inks, Callifolio Bleu Atlantique is definitely one you should get.

 

 

Technically, the ink behaved very well. It’s rather dry in an EF-nib, but starting from F it wrote very smoothly. For a Callifolio ink, I also found it to be well-lubricated. The ink shows some really classy shading in the broader nibs, without too much contrast between the lighter and darker parts. Aesthetically very pleasing, and it definitely gives some extra character to your writing.

 

 

On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – Bleu Atlantique behaved acceptably. There is some smearing, but the text remains very legible. Water resistance however is almost non-existent. The droplet test leaves only unrcognisable blue smudges. The test with running tap water washes away almost all the colour – only faint traces remain that are barely legible. If you need some measure of water resistance in your ink, look elsewhere. When using a water-brush with doodling & drawing, you get a nice light-blue shading effect. Like all Callifolio inks, Bleu Atlantique is a very fine choice for inky drawings.

 

 

I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. For the Callifolio reviews, I’m using a new format to show you the ink’s appearance and behaviour on the different paper types. On every small band of paper I show you:

• An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip
• 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
• An ink scribble made with an M-nib fountain pen
• The name of the paper used, written with a B-nib
• A small text sample, written with an M-nib
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib)

Bleu Atlantique behaved perfectly on all the paper types, with no apparent feathering even on the lower quality papers in my test set. Drying times are mostly around the 10 second mark, with a low of 5 seconds on the more absorbent paper. The ink really shines on white paper where it looks lively and vibrant. In my opinion, it’s not a good ink for yellowish paper, where it looks sickly and underwhelming. My advice – stick to white paper with this colour.

 

I also show the back-side of the different paper types, in the same order. With the low-end Moleskine there is prominent show-through and a little bleed-through. With the other papers, Bleu Atlantique’s behaviour is impeccable. The ink copes really well with a wide variety of paper types.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Bleu Atlantique is a lovely sky-blue ink which looks best on pure white paper. The ink works well with all nib sizes, and shows some very nice and aesthetically pleasing shading in the broader nibs. Like all Callifolio inks, water resistance is low. If you love cerulean-type inks, you should definitely get this one. If you only need one ink of this colour-type – my personal advice is to go for Pelikan Edelstein Topaz. Nevertheless, this Callifolio ink is a great choice, and I enjoyed using it.

 

 

Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib

 

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by namrehsnoom

[visvamitra]

Excellent review as usually. As for the color - it can has some appeal to people. I'm not crazy about it though

[lapis]

Really an excellent review, in general. The colour itself isn't my cup of tea either but for doodlers and painters it's probably very enticing and should lead them (and others) to the whole palette of these inks. Thanks for all of the illuminating work you have put into this!

 

Mike

[namrehsnoom]

Really an excellent review, in general. The colour itself isn't my cup of tea either but for doodlers and painters it's probably very enticing and should lead them (and others) to the whole palette of these inks. Thanks for all of the illuminating work you have put into this!

 

 

Thanks for your kind words, Mike. To show my appreciation, I'll do some reviews of greyish inks next - I'm sure these are more your cup of tea

[lapis]

Oh yes, they sure are. I'm getting into a sum of 'em which will then allow me to wallow in 'em... But please pick a few exotic ones which are yet strange to me....

 

Mike

[fugel]

Excellent review, as always. Thank you.

[DrDebG]

Outstanding review! I love this ink!

[amberleadavis]

Excellent review as usually. As for the color - it can has some appeal to people. I'm not crazy about it though

 

Totally ditto.

[birchtine]

I can only add that Bleu Atlantique behaves nicely on papers of lesser quality while using wet writing pens. I think I'm in love

Edited June 8, 2017 by birchtine

[NicolausPiscator]

Wow! Thank you for this extensive and intensive ink review! I love L'Artisan Pastellier inks, although I have to admit that Bleu Atlantique is not my favourite, but the way how you speak about this colour nearly convinces me to try it out! The L'Artisan Pastellier inks are very fine, I especially love the Callifolio series and highly appreciate Itzamna and Olivastre.