芸景堂 (Yunjingtang) inks from China

[A Smug Dill]

Has anyone tried any of the 芸景堂 (yún jǐng táng) inks, especially those from Season Seven, which seem to be in the vein of the lighter, multi-hued colours in the Sailor Ink Studio line?

 

Source: AliExpress

 

At nominally US$8.80 per 30ml bottle, I think they're priced competitively against Sailor Ink Studio and Sailor Manyo inks, assuming that they are as good and/or interesting as the Japanese inks. However, shipping charges for bottle of ink (and often customs issues with exporting liquids through the post from China) and border taxes lift the effective averaged cost of acquisition to over US$13 a bottle if I were to order all three of the above at once, and still have to keep my fingers crossed that they get past Chinese Customs and get delivered here intact and without incident, so I'm not as gung-ho about just spending money on them as I usually would be.

 

There's also this seemingly colour-shifting shimmer ink:

Source: AliExpress

 

but my confidence level is quite low in shimmer inks from China having consistently small particle size to not cause clogging in my (typically Fine-nibbed) fountain pens.

[mizgeorge]

La, la, la, la, la - I can't see them if I put my hands over my eyes, and I'm getting out of this page very quickly now.....

[inkstainedruth]

7 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

La, la, la, la, la - I can't see them if I put my hands over my eyes, and I'm getting out of this page very quickly now.....

As for me, the inks that are shown in the posted images seem to be (with the exception of the "shimmer" ink) to be pretty, but too light to really be legible.  So, okay for drawing with, but not for writing with.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

… pretty, but too light to really be legible.  So, okay for drawing with, but not for writing with.

 

You're probably right. The one at the top (思美人) with the dusky rose colour is probably OK, the third one less so, and the one in the middle is just a wash-out.

 

These are from Season Eight:

Source: AliExpress

 

I'm quite taken by the first two, but alas I think the strong colour contrast comes from shimmer that the artist just made a deliberate effort to concentrate and deposit on the petals near the centre of the flowers. The two multi-hued ones at the bottom are nice and probably sufficiently legible, more so than the two lighter colours from Season Seven.

 

Still… I'm not paying US$13 for each 30ml bottle, when I can buy (even now) 50ml bottles of Sailor Yukiakari, Fujimusume and Sakuramori for less than that, if I'm of a mind to spend money on some pretty, pale colours that I know will be legible enough. Maybe that's why I never pulled the trigger on any of the most talked-about Sailor Ink Studio colours, even though they've been put into my online shopping carts countless times.

[Aminah]

How about just let me buy one of each.  Geeeesh!!!  Eyegasms here, gotta go!!!

[Mech-for-i]

AFAIK , all the Chinese boutique ink brands suggest against using any shimmer ink in anything finer than a Euro M, and pretty much a large portion of them suggest against using them in fountain pen at all. Considering that most of them being destinated for art use ( thus mostly brushes ) I can relay

[A Smug Dill]

On 3/19/2021 at 10:29 AM, A Smug Dill said:

I'm quite taken by the first two, but alas I think the strong colour contrast comes from shimmer that the artist just made a deliberate effort to concentrate and deposit on the petals near the centre of the flowers.

 

Re-reading the manufacturer's description last night, which stated none of the inks in Season Eight contains shimmer powder, I now have to assume the strongly differentiated colour is due to sheen, although I don't know how a user can have such precise control over on which pen strokes or trails of ink sheen will manifest.

 

Anyway, last night I ended up ordering five of the inks in Seasons Seven and Eight above, and then one each from Seasons Ten and Twelve.

[AmandaW]

I missed this thread when originally posted and may have not been so interested back then, but tastes and temptations do change. That soft pink in the Season 8 set looks similar to the TWSBI pink I have in a cart waiting for me to find enough reasons to give in.

 

Will be following your reports with interest!