De Atramentis -Document Cyan

[yazeh]

De Atramentis Document Cyan 

 

According to Oxford Dictionary,  

cy·an | ˈsīən, ˈsīˌan |

noun

a greenish-blue color which is one of the primary subtractive colors, complementary to red.

ORIGIN

late 19th century: from Greek kuaneos ‘dark blue’.

 

There's no green in the Chroma:

I dislike this ink. As a blue it has no character. The colour blue, despite its connotation, make me happy. This one, no. 

Normally, when I finish a review, I enjoy taking notes until the ink is finished. This one and its Artist Cyan sibling, when down the drain, right after. 

Pity such a lovely vibrant blue, looks so fad on paper. Maybe it's only saving grace, is filling vials / bottles and lining them on a shelf 😛

 

I am used to badly behaving permanent inks by several brands, especially you know who brand   I manage to tame them by using a drier pen, finer or sometimes wider nib, good paper, or all the above. 

This ink loves to ghost and bleed on anything paper. It’s the ultimate Alien/ Borg for paper. It can rejoin Artist Turquoise for the Razzie awards in inks. 

However, It's the only ink that can dry on Tomoe River 68 gr in less than 2 seconds. I've never seen anything like that.. 

I didn't bother using a flex nib. It was pointless. 

 

Ironically, Rhodia fared decently. While it bleeds, ghosting is acceptable. 

 

I cannot recommend it for writing. 

You can probably tame it, with a dry pen, and a light touch on Rhodia, if you insist. 

If you like the colour, get a sample of Artist Cyan. It’s slightly better. 

 

Here's a comparison. My apologies for the upside down swatches. 

Top Right is Kakimori Karari. 

Bottom Right is Monteverde Horizon Blue. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

· Pens used: Pilot Kakuno (Ef) Lamy Safari (Ef/F/M), Jinhao 450 Fude nib

· What I liked: Very fast dry time. 

· What I did not like: Bleeding/ghosting through everything. Colour is flat. Ink is too wet.

· Shading: None  

· Ghosting: On every single paper. 

· Bleed through: Same as above. 

· Flow Rate: Excellent

· Lubrication: Excellent

· Nib Dry-out: None.

· Start-up: None.

· Saturation:  Saturated

· Shading Potential: None

· Sheen: None.

· Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Yes

· Nib Creep / “Crud”: Yes.   

· Staining (pen): Yes. It did stain my Pilot Section only, however, after 6 hours of soaking, the stain was removed.  Convertors were fine. 

· Clogging: No

 

Please don't hesitate to share your experience, writing samples or any other comments. The more the merrier  

[LizEF]

Thank you, @yazeh, for another very thorough review! And for enduring this infamous ink long enough to bring us a review.

 

1 hour ago, yazeh said:

cy·an | ˈsīən, ˈsīˌan |

noun

a greenish-blue color which is one of the primary subtractive colors, complementary to red.

ORIGIN

late 19th century: from Greek kuaneos ‘dark blue’.

Am I the only one bothered by the fact that we take these words that start with a K sound and somehow morph them into starting with an S sound?

 

1 hour ago, yazeh said:

You can probably tame it, with a dry pen, and a light touch on Rhodia, if you insist.

"if you insist" might sum up use of this ink.

[yazeh]

46 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Thank you, @yazeh, for another very thorough review! And for enduring this infamous ink long enough to bring us a review.

I'm glad it's over 😛

 

46 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

Am I the only one bothered by the fact that we take these words that start with a K sound and somehow morph them into starting with an S sound?

It happens in many languages. Look at Essri, his names is pronounced Ethri in Snek

46 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

"if you insist" might sum up use of this ink.

Right on!

[LizEF]

59 minutes ago, yazeh said:

It happens in many languages. Look at Essri, his names is pronounced Ethri in Snek

Hey!  No making fun of the lisp!  Only Essri gets to call himself Ethri.

[yazeh]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

Hey!  No making fun of the lisp!  Only Essri gets to call himself Ethri.

🤣

 

[inkstainedruth]

Well, not my favorite shade of blue, but I've seen worse colors (my sample of Upper Ganges Blue was so light that even though it was supposed to be permanent, I didn't think using it for signing checks was a *remotely* good idea...).  I don't know if it's just me, but on my screen the first writing sample of Document Cyan does look like there's a tiny bit of green in it....

I think that you shouldn't have dumped the ink though -- I'm sure that there would be *someone* out there who would have happily taken it off your hands....  I'm just not that person.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth 

[yazeh]

1 minute ago, inkstainedruth said:

Well, not my favorite shade of blue, but I've seen worse colors (my sample of Upper Ganges Blue was so light that even though it was supposed to be permanent, I didn't think using it for signing checks was a *remotely* good idea...).  

I have yet to review my sample of Upper Ganges 

 

1 minute ago, inkstainedruth said:

 

I don't know if it's just me, but on my screen the first writing sample of Document Cyan does look like there's a tiny bit of green in it....

There's no green  in the chroma. In the turquoise, there was some green. 

1 minute ago, inkstainedruth said:

I think that you shouldn't have dumped the ink though -- I'm sure that there would be *someone* out there who would have happily taken it off your hands....  I'm just not that person.

I didn't dump my samples. Only the few drops of ink left in the convertors. I still have the samples

 

[inkstainedruth]

2 minutes ago, yazeh said:

There's no green  in the chroma. In the turquoise, there was some green. 

I didn't dump my samples. Only the few drops of ink left in the convertors. I still have the samples

 

Ah, my mistake -- when you said "dump" I assumed that you meant the entire sample/bottle, not just what was in the pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[yazeh]

Just now, inkstainedruth said:

Ah, my mistake -- when you said "dump" I assumed that you meant the entire sample/bottle, not just what was in the pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

No problem, I probably wasn't clear enough.

I actually dumped the ink on a piece of Watercolour paper, to do some artwork. But it didn't pan out as I planned. And in the end had to cover with even more ink

 

[arcfide]

It's weird that I don't see many inks that are both permanent and well behaved in this color spectrum. Noodler's Legal Blue is much like this ink in how poorly it seems to perform (though I guess probably not quite as bad), and I've had the same experience with most of the others I've tried. I wonder what makes this such a hard color to get in permanent form, when nice "Peacock Blue" or Tourquoise/Cyan type inks are widely available with great colors in the water soluble, non-permanent variety. 

[TSherbs]

23 minutes ago, arcfide said:

It's weird that I don't see many inks that are both permanent and well behaved in this color spectrum. Noodler's Legal Blue is much like this ink in how poorly it seems to perform (though I guess probably not quite as bad), and I've had the same experience with most of the others I've tried. I wonder what makes this such a hard color to get in permanent form, when nice "Peacock Blue" or Tourquoise/Cyan type inks are widely available with great colors in the water soluble, non-permanent variety. 

Good question.

 

I think Noodler's Baltimore Canyon Blue is the best looking permanent blue ink that I have seen (darker than this Cyan). 

[arcfide]

1 hour ago, TSherbs said:

Good question.

 

I think Noodler's Baltimore Canyon Blue is the best looking permanent blue ink that I have seen (darker than this Cyan). 

 

That does seem to be one that at least begins to approach it, but I don't think it really compares to things like Lamy Turquoise or Waterman Inspired Blue or Sheaffer Peacock Blue or the like -- it seems to be missing the greenish tint and is more deep blue. That seems to be a hard color to make archival? 

[yazeh]

15 hours ago, arcfide said:

It's weird that I don't see many inks that are both permanent and well behaved in this color spectrum. Noodler's Legal Blue is much like this ink in how poorly it seems to perform (though I guess probably not quite as bad), and I've had the same experience with most of the others I've tried. I wonder what makes this such a hard color to get in permanent form, when nice "Peacock Blue" or Tourquoise/Cyan type inks are widely available with great colors in the water soluble, non-permanent variety. 

I am testing a few more  blues. Kakimori Karari seems promising and is a lovely colour, enjoyable to write with. 

Noodler's has also several nice blues. I'm testing the Russian series blue and hopefully I can find a few good ones there. I find the Russian series, in general, some of the best inks and easiest to clean. The thing with most Noodler's inks, you can tame them with the right paper/ pen combination. But with the De Atramentis Document/Artist Turquoise/ Cyan it was almost impossible. 

Sketchink Marlene isn't bad either, a bit flat, but it's viscous, clinging ink. So you need to have a well-sealed pen.

[yazeh]

14 hours ago, TSherbs said:

Good question.

 

I think Noodler's Baltimore Canyon Blue is the best looking permanent blue ink that I have seen (darker than this Cyan). 

I'm looking forward to testing it. I read rave reviews about it!

[yazeh]

13 hours ago, arcfide said:

 

That does seem to be one that at least begins to approach it, but I don't think it really compares to things like Lamy Turquoise or Waterman Inspired Blue or Sheaffer Peacock Blue or the like -- it seems to be missing the greenish tint and is more deep blue. That seems to be a hard color to make archival? 

In another thread, I read that De Atramentis Document Dark Blue for example is not light fast. If, you're interested I can dig out the link...

[namrehsnoom]

Thanks for the review @yazeh. I normally like sky-blue inks, but looking at the pics the colour didn’t come to life. I guess what’s bothering me is the flatness of the ink, its one-dimensionality. It just looks lifeless. And given the bad technical quality, it certainly looks like an ink to avoid.

I have no personal experience with other De Atramentis inks. Is this one the rule or the exception?

[yazeh]

16 hours ago, namrehsnoom said:

Thanks for the review @yazeh.

Most welcome!

16 hours ago, namrehsnoom said:

 

 

I normally like sky-blue inks, but looking at the pics the colour didn’t come to life. I guess what’s bothering me is the flatness of the ink, its one-dimensionality. It just looks lifeless.

It is indeed. I would recommend it only for artwork and artist as I mentioned before

 

16 hours ago, namrehsnoom said:

 

 

And given the bad technical quality, it certainly looks like an ink to avoid.

This one for sure

 

16 hours ago, namrehsnoom said:

I have no personal experience with other De Atramentis inks. Is this one the rule or the exception?

I have tried less than 10 De Atramentis inks.  2 of them were dye based. The rest were Waterproof inks. The dye inked based were "normal", as far as I recall. SO I cannot really comment. But I know a few members who raved about De Atramentis' normal lineup. Though they have so many inks that one can get lost with them. 

Artist Sepia had flow issues. 

Document/ Artist /Turquoise Cyan and Turquoise were not the best. Often times with permanent inks, you have some wiggle room and you can make them work. Those inks didn't work. I still have a few other De Atramentis colours. Hope they work better

 

 

[mouse2cat]

On 3/24/2023 at 4:50 PM, arcfide said:

It's weird that I don't see many inks that are both permanent and well behaved in this color spectrum. Noodler's Legal Blue is much like this ink in how poorly it seems to perform (though I guess probably not quite as bad), and I've had the same experience with most of the others I've tried. I wonder what makes this such a hard color to get in permanent form, when nice "Peacock Blue" or Tourquoise/Cyan type inks are widely available with great colors in the water soluble, non-permanent variety. 

 

I got a bottle of Marline from R&K and while its a wet writer like these other cyan shades it's actually a perfectly functional ink. It does make a fine nib look like a medium but seems like a perfectly good waterproof alternative. 

[yazeh]

19 hours ago, mouse2cat said:

 

I got a bottle of Marline from R&K and while its a wet writer like these other cyan shades it's actually a perfectly functional ink. It does make a fine nib look like a medium but seems like a perfectly good waterproof alternative. 

It's a good ink Marlene. It's a bit viscous. You need a well sealed pen for that.