L'artisan Pastellier Callifolio - Andrinople

[namrehsnoom]

L'Artisan Pastellier Callifolio - Andrinople

 

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 I take a closer look at Andrinople, one of the purple inks of the series. Andrinople is a very lively reddish pink, that presumably gets its name from the famous dye “rouge d’Andrinople”, also known as Turkey Red. This colour, obtained from the root of the rubia plant, was widely used to dye cotton in the 18th and 19th century.

 

Andrinople sure is an eye-catching colour – lively and happy – and absolutely very very pink. Wow… this is really pink ! No denying it. Definitely not an ink I would normally use for writing, and certainly not an ink for use at the office. And yet, for some strange reason, I kinda like it. It reminds me a bit of Edelstein Turmaline – also a reddish pink, and I had exactly the same relation with that one (not an ink I wanted to be caught with using it, but strangely attractive nevertheless).

 

 

Although I won’t use this ink for writing myself (I’m trying not to be biased, but I can’t see myself writing in pink), I certainly can understand the appeal this ink could have for other people. And myself, I definitely like it for doodling and drawing. The ink is a pleasure to draw with, with hues ranging from a light rose over pink to purple-red. It really brings colour to the paper !

 

Technically, the ink behaved very well, with good performance in all nib sizes. It’s perfectly usable in an EF nib, and starts to show some very aesthetic shading in M-nibs and above. I found the ink pleasurable to write with.

 

 

On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – Andrinople behaved acceptably. There is some smearing, but the text remains very legible. Water resistance however is totally non-existent. The droplet test leaves only some pink smudges. The test with running tap water washes away all the colour – leaving no readable residue on the paper. 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-rose shading effect, while lines drawn with e.g. a dip pin are a nicely saturated dark red-purple. Like all Callifolio inks, Andrinople 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)

Andrinople 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 5-10 second mark, so this is a rather fast-drying ink. The ink looks really vibrant on Fantastic paper, and also shines on Rhodia and Paperblanks paper. On Tomoe River – it disappointed a bit, remaining undersaturated. Andrinople looks good on both white and off-white paper.

 

I also show the back-side of the different paper types, in the same order. The ink behaved perfectly with almost all paper types. Only with Moleskine and Graf von Faber Castell, there was significant show-trough and some minor bleed-through. All in all a really well-behaving ink.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Andrinople from L’Artisan Pastellier is a very vibrant and eye-catching reddish-pink ink, that is great for doodling and drawing. Myself – I wouldn’t like to be caught writing with it, but I’m sure it will appeal to lots of other people (not trying to be sexist here, but I consider this more of a feminine ink colour, certainly for writing). I find the ink very appealing for doodling & drawing – an eye-catching hue that retains its watercolour-like appearance. Really nice ! The ink works well with all nib sizes, and shows some very nice and aesthetically pleasing shading in the broader nibs. Like most Callifolio inks, water resistance is close to zero. If you like pinky inks or if you enjoy doodling & drawing, this certainly is an ink to consider. I’m sure you will like it.

 

 

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

 

 

 

[visvamitra]

I've been waiting for this review as it seems to outside your usual choice of inks As usually the review is well written and informative. I was interested in this review not only to see your tke on pinkish red ink, but also to see what color did you find in your bottle. It seems Andrinople is one of Callifolio inks where differences between batches are quite strong. I remember that when I first tried it it looked exactly the way you present it. Than after one year I received a sample from newer batch ond it was much more intense and reddish, recently I've received another sample and the color while not as intense as the last sample I had is quite saturated and intense.

 

For some people it's part of the fun with handmade inks but sometimes it may be surprising in a bad way. I believe also Omi Osun, Oconto, Ohlanga and Olifants went through signifcant mutations.

[amberleadavis]

Thank you, Nam. Your doodles are amazing and your review very helpful.

[namrehsnoom]

For some people it's part of the fun with handmade inks but sometimes it may be surprising in a bad way. I believe also Omi Osun, Oconto, Ohlanga and Olifants went through signifcant mutations.

For me it's definitely part of the fun. The whole Callifolio line was a jump in the dark, and that turned out really nice. I'm seriously enjoying this ink series, and have a great time using and reviewing them. Great return on investment, if you ask me :-) Edited January 10, 2017 by namrehsnoom

[visvamitra]

And that'smost important part of it - some fun I enjoy Callifolio line although at the moment I use only one of their inks regularly - Olivastre.

[saskia_madding]

I quite love this ink, especially in broader and wetter nibs. Thanks for the great review!

[lapis]

Thanks for another great review. It's not only fun reading and studying these creations of yours but also more than a pleasure looking into every nook and cranny to see what you can fondle out for us all.

Keep up the good work!!

 

Mike