Inks And Intrinsic Beauty

[essayfaire]

Has anyone else had difficulty deciding whether or not to hold onto an ink because the ink works for a pen but not for personal aesthetic value? I was lucky enough to be given the Estie Icicle pen shown below; I inked it up with a sample Robert Oster that looked close to the pen color. I am pleased with the pairing of ink color to pen color (see attached photo), but not with the ink color itself; I tend to prefer deep rather than smoky colors of my ink. Now I'm at my wits end deciding whether to keep this nice pen inked with a color that suits it, or change it to a color that suits me. I do realize this is a rather superficial problem to have, but it irks me nonetheless. Anyone else similarly torn?

[Karmachanic]

Well. The pen doesn't care what ink it holds.

 

For myself I made things simple. Black pens, white furniture. They happily accept whatever I fill them with.

 

Apologies for being of no help.

[Mercian]

If you don’t like the ink’s colour my advice is that you should not use it.

 

What other colours do you think would suit that pen?
I think that black would be acceptable from it, and maybe other greens - but your opinion/feeling is the only one that matters.

 

If the Pathetic Fallacy is as strong in you as it is in me, then you can always give away the rest of the ink to someone who will - or even someone who might - like it.

[flyingfox]

Maybe use a complimenting color? I am not sure if I can quote someone’s comment from another thread, but... something like this might work??

 

A happy coincidence:

Here’s the link (hopefully) to the thread itself, there are a few other cool examples of colors that can go together without being “matchy-matchy”.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/352068-nature-inspired-ink-color-pairings/

[inkstainedruth]

I almost never try to match ink and barrel colors (one of the exceptions is my M400 Brown Tortoise, and I keep THREATENING to put Noodler's Navajo Turquoise in it sometime instead of a brown ink, except I like Edelstein Smoky Quartz too much ). I DO, however, sometimes pick inks on the basis of what I think will look good coming out of a specific pen. And if I don't like an ink color at all I try to find it a new home -- or at least grit my teeth and use up the sample vial, knowing that once it's gone, it's gone, and I never have to use it again....

As to the pen in the OP's photo? Maybe a brown or dark red ink. Purple would be nice, too (I hesitate to recommend pink because I don't know if the OP is a "pink" sort of person or not. But you know, I had a graphic design project once in college, where we were supposed to design graphics for inside a stairwell. And I discovered that a bright green looked really good with a darker, slightly turquoise leaning bright blue (sort of like the colors in the "Stumble Upon" logo at the bottom of the page below the reply window). So even the right shade of blue might work. A dark navy or blue black might look good, depending on the shade.

Of course, black ink goes with everything.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ENewton]

In your place, I would look for an ink that I liked better and that complemented the pen.

[Eclipse157]

While I sometimes enjoy matching pen color with ink color, it is always paramount to me to enjoy the writing on the page. There are so many green inks around, try some samples and see what works for you! May I suggest Sailor Tokiwa-Matsu?

[derivativegal]

In your place, I would look for an ink that I liked better and that complemented the pen.

+1. Samples are the best way to try and find the right match.

Edited February 19, 2020 by derivativegal

[Intensity]

All the time. I have sold and traded a lot of inks that did not interest me after trying them in person. I still have a lot but 90% now are the keepers.

[essayfaire]

Thank you everyone for your responses.

Well. The pen doesn't care what ink it holds.

 

True; I seem to be breaking the KISS rule.

 

I DO, however, sometimes pick inks on the basis of what I think will look good coming out of a specific pen. And if I don't like an ink color at all I try to find it a new home -- or at least grit my teeth and use up the sample vial, knowing that once it's gone, it's gone, and I never have to use it again....

As to the pen in the OP's photo? Maybe a brown or dark red ink. Purple would be nice, too (I hesitate to recommend pink because I don't know if the OP is a "pink" sort of person or not. But you know, I had a graphic design project once in college, where we were supposed to design graphics for inside a stairwell.

I love browns, especially warm and deep ones. I'm not a pink ink person, but your suggestions have me thinking I should pick up a sample of Oster Schwartze Rose as it looks brown (at least on the computer screen) with pink shining through.

 

While I sometimes enjoy matching pen color with ink color, it is always paramount to me to enjoy the writing on the page. There are so many green inks around, try some samples and see what works for you! May I suggest Sailor Tokiwa-Matsu?

I have been on a quest for the perfect green ink; that's why I had this sample bottle around, which goes well with the pen but is not "my" preferred green. If the computer is being true to the color, I'm afraid the Tokiwa-Matsu may also be too olive-green for my taste. I do think it would pair well with the pen, just not for me.

 

I have an acquaintance whose wife is partial to greens, so those I reject do find a new home!

[Runnin_Ute]

This is why I don't often try to match pen color and ink color. Either it works well in the pen but doesn't match, or it matches and doesn't work well. Rarely do you get both.

[A Smug Dill]

I just opened up my new bottle of Platinum Classic Ink Citrus Black today. It's just too faint to see when writing, when I tried it in my boring old Sailor Profit21 that is fitted with an anything-but-boring Naginata Concord nib, and doesn't allow me to exert precise control over what is put on the page by working with visual feedback. Next, I filled my previously unused Pelikan M200 Gold Marbled with it, on account of Pelikan nibs tend to run "wet" and its F nibs not nearly as suitably fine as Japanese F nibs. The colours of the ink -- when it is first laid down on the page, and after it darkened -- are a perfect match for the pen's barrel; but I just can't use that ink if I want my handwriting to look decent.

 

 

I like my four other colours of Platinum Classic Ink (and Sepia Black is the only one I don't have and don't intend to buy), but Citrus Black is certainly my least favourite iron-gall ink.

Edited February 25, 2020 by A Smug Dill

[essayfaire]

The colours of the ink -- when it is first laid down on the page, and after it darkened -- are a perfect match for the pen's barrel; but I just can't use that ink if I want my handwriting to look decent.

 

What do you mean by "look decent?" I've never thought about the way an ink makes my handwriting look; I've thought more about which inks suit the way I form my letters.

[A Smug Dill]

What do you mean by "look decent?" I've never thought about the way an ink makes my handwriting look; I've thought more about which inks suit the way I form my letters.

 

If I can't see exactly what I'm putting down where on the page the instant the ink gets on the paper, it's pretty difficult to make the outcome look good. I can see where the nib is touching the paper but I can't tell how thick a line it's leaving; and my cursive handwriting technique is heavily reliant on modulating hand pressure and abrupt changes in direction throughout the line's trajectory.

 

Try this for a thought experiment, even if you don't actually have a bottle of Noodler's Blue Ghost or other invisible ink. How decent is your handwriting going to look, if you're writing with a fountain pen filled with invisible ink, without the benefit of ultraviolet lighting in the process of writing?

[essayfaire]

 

 

Try this for a thought experiment, even if you don't actually have a bottle of Noodler's Blue Ghost or other invisible ink. How decent is your handwriting going to look, if you're writing with a fountain pen filled with invisible ink, without the benefit of ultraviolet lighting in the process of writing?

My son has Blue Ghost around here somewhere - I will try it and let you know! I suspect it will look better than you imagine and worse than I imagine.

 

[senzen]

For me the ink "chooses" its pen, if pen and ink look good together it's a bonus. Tsuyu Kusa looks perfect in a wet medium Sailor Professional Gear, I tried it in a Pelikan m605, it came out a little bland. For some reason that same blue m605 did not compute with the greenish Kon Peki to my eyes.

[TheDutchGuy]

For me the ink "chooses" its pen, if pen and ink look good together it's a bonus.

 

 

Limiting myself to modern pens for the moment (vintage is a different ballgame): agreed, though I’d phrase it by saying that pen and ink determine between themselves if their marriage is going to be a happy one - or not. My plans and wishes have nothing to do with it.

 

Since every rule has its exception, I’d say that Sailor is the exception. In my experience, you can put any Sailor ink in any Sailor pen and it’s going to be completely fuss-free, without any kind of breaking-in period. And you can put Sailor ink in a lot of non-Sailor pens and get great results, more so than with any other kind of ink I know (including Waterman and iroshizuku). With pens like Pelikan, Kaweco, Pilot, Visconti, Cross and many other brands, it’s trial and error to find the proper ink.

 

I’ve got pens that are bone-dry with one ink, to the point of skipping, while they gush like a river with other inks.

 

I’ve got inks that sheen and shade like crazy in one pen, but appear totally homogeneous in other pens.

 

Such is our hobby, it would appear .

[A Smug Dill]

My son has Blue Ghost around here somewhere - I will try it and let you know! I suspect it will look better than you imagine and worse than I imagine.

 

It could be a function of the interplay between the particular ink, nib and paper, but I certainly feel I'm more in control and my penmanship appears to be better when I can see what I'm doing:

 

 

 

(The writing in Noodler's Blue Ghost was done without the benefit of a UV light; I was going by the barely visible glistening of the still-wet invisible ink under diffuse daylight to "see" what I was doing there.)

 

For me the ink "chooses" its pen, if pen and ink look good together it's a bonus.

Now that I've swapped out the steel EF nib on my Pelikan M200 Gold Marbled for a 14K gold M400 EF nib (because the latter is wetter, but more importantly, I wanted a more controllable nib in the M400 from which it came), I must say I liked the writing experience and output from Platinum Citrus Black much better, so yes, the ink "chooses" the pen.

 

 

You can't tinker with a particular commercially available ink without "denaturing" it or making it other than what it's supposed to be, but you could always put it in a different pen or nib, and/or write on different paper (including buying new pens and/or paper to suit, if necessary). It doesn't "denature" a pen or nib to reject it as being suitable for use with a particular ink that you want to try and/or use; and the price of the pen is irrelevant. Even a $10,000 pen cannot be expected to work well with every ink on the market, and when it doesn't produce good results with a particular ink, it's neither the fault of the pen nor the ink (nor their respective manufacturers), but just a prompt to stand that pen aside and find some other pen to suit that purpose.

[A Smug Dill]

Since every rule has its exception, I’d say that Sailor is the exception. In my experience, you can put any Sailor ink in any Sailor pen and it’s going to be completely fuss-free, without any kind of breaking-in period.

 

I'd love for you to try Sailor seiboku pigment ink in a Sailor Professional Gear 'Imperial Black' edition, so see what you think, but I can't reasonably expect you to have that pen unless you're particularly into 'stealth" pens with ruthenium-coated black nibs. In my experience, that's one combination that just doesn't work, even though the pen works well with other (including many non-Sailor) inks and the ink works well with many other pens.

[essayfaire]

 

It could be a function of the interplay between the particular ink, nib and paper, but I certainly feel I'm more in control and my penmanship appears to be better when I can see what I'm doing:

 

 

 

(The writing in Noodler's Blue Ghost was done without the benefit of a UV light; I was going by the barely visible glistening of the still-wet invisible ink under diffuse daylight to "see" what I was doing there.)

 

Your handwriting, even when you cannot see what you're doing, is so much better than mine that I now think our difference of opinion may be due to the fact that my handwriting almost never "looks decent".