TACCIA Ukiyo-e Syaraku natane

[namrehsnoom]

TACCIA Ukiyo-e Syaraku natane

TACCIA is a Japanese stationery company, that - as far as I know - is now part of the Nakabayashi group. They offer high-quality fountain pens, inks, pen-rolls, notebooks, etc. More specifically, TACCIA produces a line of inks, inspired by the unique look of Ukiyo-e prints from Japan’s Edo period (1603-1868). Ukiyo-e prints are woodblock prints where the work of an artist is carved into wood by woodworkers, and pressed onto paper by printers. This allows for the production of multiple prints of an artwork with some different colours as well.

 

In this review, the star of the show is natane, a golden-yellow ink with a hint of green undertones. The ink is inspired by the colour that appears in the kimono from “Segawa Kikunojyo III as Oshizu, Wife of Tanabe Bunzo.” This print of the actor Segawa Kikunojyo III is one of the most celebrated portraits of the onnagata (male actor in a female role) by the late eighteenth-century artist Tousyusai Syaraku. It portrays a character in the Genroku era play Hanaayame Bunroku Soga (The Iris Saga of the Bunroku Era), a drama that retells the true story of the vengeance of ten brothers for their father's assassination in 1701. The play was performed at the Miyako-za theater in the city of Edo in May 1794.

 

For writing, this ink disappointed me. It writes really dry with a serious lack of lubrication. Also – yellow is a difficult colour to write with: not so good for dry pens / fine nibs, and definitely unsuitable for use on cream-coloured paper. Furthermore, the ink suffers from see-through / bleed-through on many paper types. And the list goes on… lines are smeared out instead of crisp with most nibs, except the fine ones. Overall, not a fantastic ink to write with.

On the other hand, there is that lovely golden-yellow colour, that seems to shine of its own. When saturated, natane shows a beautiful green undertone that sets this ink apart from others I own in this tonal range. This is an ink that’s made for drawing!

The ink comes in a 40 ml bottle, that is packaged in a beautiful box showing the corresponding Ukiyo-e painting.

 

To show you the impact of saturation on the ink’s look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of a strip of 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Natane has a fairly wide dynamic range, while keeping a pleasant contrast between light and darker parts. This translates to soft shading, that is most evident in wet pens with wide nibs that can cover the complete expressive range of this ink. I like the writing in my Edison Collier with 1.1 stub nib, which is used in the scan below.

 

The ink’s chromatography shows a truly diverse mix of dyes, with light-blue, rose and yellow tones appearing. This already hints at the green undertones that blossom up where the ink gets saturated. The resulting colour is really beautiful: an old gold-yellow with an antique vibe that seems to shine from within. I really like this ink’s colour. As can be seen from the bottom part of the chromatography, natane shows a bit of water resistance. The yellow dyes disappear, but a light-blue residue remains that makes it possible to reconstruct your writing.

 

I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. 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 Lamy Safari
• The name of the paper used, written with a Pelikan M400 with gold M-nib
• A small text sample, written with a Parker Sonnet with F-nib
• Source of the quote, written with an Edison Collier with 1.1 stub
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari)

Natane is too unsaturated to play nice with my usual Safari test pens. That’s why I used wet pens for my writing samples. These wet pens push the colour range to the saturated part of its spectrum, where you get that golden hue with a green undertone – which I consider the goldy-locks zone for this ink. 

As mentioned above, the ink has lots of technical shortcomings: low lubrication, absorbs too fast into the paper, resulting in wide lines and a fair amount of see-through and even bleed-through. You also get a tiny amount of feathering on many of the more absorbent papers. Overall, natane is a poor performing writing ink (my opinion). I liked the ink best with my Parker Sonnet with F-nib – the Sonnet tends to write more saturated (it evaporates water like crazy with that breather hole in its cap), which accentuates the golden-green end of natane’s colour spectrum. And the fine nib keeps the wide-writing tendency of this ink under control.

Below are photos that show the ink on the different papers in my test set.

 

My scanner has difficulties capturing natane’s colour well. The ink shows too yellow, and that inner golden light gets lost. For the sake of completeness, you can find an example of a scan below.

 

Writing with different nib sizes
The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing. Natane is too unsatured with my Lamy Safari test pens, which results in a light yellow that is barely readable. Also, the dry-writing Safari is definitely unpleasant to use with this under-lubricated ink. But I really like the ink with wet writers, and especially with my Parker Sonnet.

 

Related inks
To compare natane with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. The ink is different from other yellow-toned inks in my collection. The yellow dominates, but that barely-visible green undertone sets natane apart from its neighbours.

 

Inkxperiment – hunter-seeker
With every review, I try to create an interesting drawing using only the ink I am reviewing. These small one-ink pieces are an excellent way to show the colour-range nuances that are hidden within the ink. And I totally enjoy the fun couple of hours these inkxperiments provide me. Yellow-toned inks are usually great for drawing, so I had high hopes for this inkxperiment.

Inspiration for the drawing comes from the novel “The Kraken Project” by Douglas Preston. A light read, where the plot centers around Dorothy, an AI program that escapes to the internet. At a certain point, virus-bots are sent out hunting for Dorothy’s signature. The drawing captures the moment where the virus-bots zoom in for the kill, with Dorothy desperately hiding behind her firewall. 

 

For this drawing, I started with a piece of A4 HP photo paper. I first drew the background, using some cotton pads and water-diluted ink, with parts of the scene taped out using washi tape. Next I drew the firewall using pure natane and a plastic card, and painted in the figure of Dorothy. I finally added the hunter-seeker virus-bots executing their attack. The final picture turned out quite well, and gives you a good impression of what can be achieved with this TACCIA ink in a more artistic setting.

 

Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper.

 

For this computational derivation, I first abstracted the drawing, and then used a filter that overexposed the scene. Finally I added a lens blur filter – keeping Dorothy in focus, but seriously blurring out the image of the killer-bots. I quite like the end-result, which emphasizes Dorothy’s despair when the hunter-seekers initiate their attack.

 

Conclusion
TACCIA Ukiyo-e Syaraku natane is a difficult ink. Not really suited for writing and with lots of technical issues. You really need to hunt for the right combination of pen and paper when working with this one. But it’s also an ink with a beautiful golden-yellow colour that works great for drawing. I will continue to use it in my Parker Sonnet, but will probably use most of my bottle for doing ink paintings.

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

 

Back-side of writing samples on different paper types
 

 

[lapis]

Very nice! "A golden-yellow ink with a hint of green undertones"... now that's a hard one to beat. First of all, I thought about Iroshi's Bamboo Forest, but that's rather the inverse, viz. a green with golden-yellow undertones. Good for sketching, but I'm not sure about an all-round daily ink for writing.

[dftr]

Thanks for the review.  The drawing is really cool though to be honest I actually prefer the image with blur filter, but the ink itself seems less useful for writing...  Perhaps they have different shade of paper that helps the ink stand out?  It's a little expensive to use as a highliter.  I have another ink from Taccia "golden wheat" which is a yellow brown and has much more legibility.  Surpisingly your Parker Sonnet w/ the F nib has the best tone and readability for me.  

[yazeh]

Another excellent review @namrehsnoom👍for a difficult ink. I especially loved your inkexperiment and suspect this ink will work well with brush pens 🙏

[InesF]

Thank you, @namrehsnoom, for the comprehensive ink review, for the background story and for your always entertaining and inspiring ink drawings!

 

Indeed, the ink looks unpleasantly pale on the comparison sheet but has, as you mention, a complex beauty at heavy applications. Having learned about Taccia inks from your reviews, I would had expected all of them to be somehow extraordinary, be it well composed or with surprising behavior (such as sabimidori has), or both. Natane may not be an exception, it seems to be designed for extremely wet pens or for brush applications.

 

Thanks for the reference to Douglas Preston. First time I heard about a hunter-seeker was from the movie and novel Dune.

 

Looking forward to your next ink review!

[lgsoltek]

Hmm... I somehow remember it's quite a wet ink... I have to check again.

[namrehsnoom]

1 hour ago, lgsoltek said:

Hmm... I somehow remember it's quite a wet ink... I have to check again.

Wetness is not an issue - drying times are normal to long. But it's the lubrication that is quite bad. And this feels worse in dry pens. With this ink, I feel that wetness could not correct the subpar lubrication - my Safari test pens were really dragging with loads of feedback across the paper. Not pleasant to write with! With wet pens you get wetness² , which compensated for the bad lubrication (and which is why I used wet pens for the writing samples).

[mizgeorge]

What a wonderful review. These are always such a treat.

 

I love this series, but this is one I don't have, and whilst I enjoy drawing with ink a great deal, I'm not feeling the need to add it to my collection. I loved your artwork, but found myself much more drawn to the Inkxpired version, and I'm pretty sure that's down to the colours.

 

thank you once again @namrehsnoom for an inspiring look at a tricky ink.