Inky rules: Do You Stick to a Color Code?

[2ouvenir]

Hey FPN!

 

I've been pondering over ink choices lately, and I'm curious about your approach. Do any of you adhere to specific rules when it comes to selecting ink colors? Personally, I find that using only one unique color each year paired with black helps maintain a sense of coherence in my writing, preventing it from becoming a colorful mishmash. Plus, it's a neat trick – instantly knowing a piece of writing is from a particular year based on its ink color!

 

But that's not all – sticking to this rule also prevents me from falling into the trap of buying too much ink and collecting more than I'll ever use. It's a practical way to avoid wastefulness and ensure that every drop of ink is put to good use.

 

Do you have similar strategies to keep your writing aesthetically pleasing and organized? Perhaps you have rules regarding ink shades or combinations to maintain consistency in your notes or correspondence, while also curbing the temptation to amass too much ink? Whether it's sticking to a limited color palette or other guidelines, I'm eager to hear about your ink habits and any tips you have for ink selection!

 

Let's discuss and share our ink wisdom!

[Paul-in-SF]

I like a colorful mishmash. I am only writing in my journal, so a different color each day looks fine to me. Black does not appeal to me at all, so although I do have a bottle of black ink, I don't use it. Similarly with the two bottles of gray ink that I have.

 

I have about 12 pens inked at a time. When one of them runs out of ink, I select another pen from my hoard of pens, and fill it with a different ink. When selecting an ink for that pen, the only hard rule is that it shouldn't be the same ink as any of the other 11 pens. Otherwise I just like to have a fairly wide range of different colors among the 12 pens. 

 

edited to add: I am trying to winnow down the number of bottles of ink that I have, so I haven't bought any new ink in the last couple of years. As it is, I'll never be able to use it all up. 

[inkstainedruth]

I'm with Paul-in-SF.  I like having a range of inks in different colors.  I never know what sort of mood I'm going to be in on any given day.

I do always have at least one pen inked up with something more "permanent" for addressing envelopes and signing checks (which currently is the Sailor 1911S Loch Ness Monster, MF nib, with Sailor Souboku).  

But beyond that?  I like variety.  So different pens, with different inks, and beyond that?  I don't even tend to do "matchy matchy" with inks and barrel colors all that much -- just maybe what I think might look good color-wise coming out of any given pen, or an ink from the same company as the pen in some cases (after learning that Pilot Yama-guri was WAY too wet an ink for my first Pelikan, a 1990s era M400 Brown Tortoise -- OTOH, both Edelstein Smoky Quartz and Noodler's Walnut worked VERY well in that pen, being drier inks than Yama-guri...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Paul-in-SF]

Matching inks to barrel color is very rare for me. I used Kiwi Inks' custom ink tool to try to match my Parker 51 Cocoa pen (not sure why) and that came out pretty close, so I do that one. And I recently bought a Montblanc model 30 in Coral, which goes pretty well with Iroshizuku Fuyu gaki. I would only do that one on the pen's first filling, after that, anything goes.

[AmandaW]

Yes, I always have a range of colours loaded, in both water soluble and waterproof versions. And different types of nibs to cover writing and drawing (fude, zoom, long knife, xxf).

 

I do colour match to help me remember what's in each pen. Brain fog and memory loss is distressing enough for everything else - I don't need to spoil this love of my life.

[Jayebird]

8 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

like a colorful mishmash. I am only writing in my journal, so a different color each day looks fine to me. Black does not appeal to me at all, so although I do have a bottle of black ink, I don't use it.

Totally me... no two journal entries in a row can be the same ink, and generally try to select distinctly different colors.

 

I do sometimes have more than one pen inked with the same color, but the nibs have to be different sizes.

[Jayebird]

6 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

I do always have at least one pen inked up with something more "permanent" for addressing envelopes

Same here. Its my Platinum Plaisir with DiAtrementis Doc black. Always the same pen + ink store in my secretary so my husband know which it is too.

 

While there is a strong correlation between pen barrel and ink color, sometimes I go for contrast instead, or color adjacent. Browns in a yellow pen for example, or purple in a peach pen.

[inkstainedruth]

20 minutes ago, Jayebird said:

I do sometimes have more than one pen inked with the same color, but the nibs have to be different sizes.

I almost *never* have more than one pen inked up with the same ink.  

Recently I did so, though, when I had some pens repaired or looked over at the Baltimore/Washington Show at the beginning of the month, because I had some pens worked on at the Indy-Pen-Dance table, and they use Waterman inks exclusively.  So one of the pens had Waterman Mysterious Blue put in it after being checked out, which is also the go-to ink for my red Shadow Wave Vac.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[kestrel]

I'm an inky anarchist.  I use lots of inks and lots of colors without rhyme or reason.  I don't put the same ink in more than one pen at the same time and my official correspondence pen is always filled with Bad Belted Kingfisher.  Variety is part of the fun of the hobby.

[Arkanabar]

It's Lent, so I am only filling with black, and other than feast days and the billets-doux to my wife (which are ALWAYS the Ku Jaku she gave me one Christmas, and always written with the aqua M205 she gave me on a later one), only writing with black.  But in general, I'll have at least one Jinhao 51A XF filled with Heart of Darkness for jotting in the narcotics journals and notes, and generally one other pen filled with some other color.  That's actually my orange Prera Iro-Ai CM, filled with Pilot Blue-Black before Ash Wednesday.

[langere]

Yeah, I confess, I try to match ink colors with the barrel's color.  Only way to keep track. 

 

The exception is a black pen.  I give myself the liberty to use any ink color with that.

 

We all make silly rules.  Those are mine.

 

Erick

[Penguincollector]

  I don’t limit myself in terms of ink with a couple of exceptions. I tend to use pens and inks from the same brand together, because they work, especially with a new pen.  I used to follow this religiously, but now I’m a bit less of a stickler for it.
I use safe inks in my old pens, like Herbin, Pelikan, Waterman’s, Parker, or Sheaffer’s- because I know the sacs will be ok. I leave shimmer or very saturated inks to inexpensive modern pens.  There are hundreds of inks and I would love to try as many as possible. I try to have a rainbow of sorts inked up in various nib sizes for creative endeavors of all kinds. ROYGBIV + pink, gold, teal, turquoise, grey, blue-black, and black.  Sometimes, I have a few different inks close in hue for comparison’s sake, or a shimmer and standard ink that are close. I don’t necessarily have to match ink to pen, but sometimes I will.

[Misfit]

Another mishmash fan. I write a page a day, with the date. I enjoy the variety of colors when I look back. And I add the pen and ink names at the bottom. We live in the golden age of inks. Enjoy it when financially feasible. 
 

Often I color match, but not always. That’s the reason I write the pen and ink in two notebooks. Only the pen name, nib, and ink name are written in a Clairefontaine spiral notebook. The same information plus writing the alphabet, and making loops are written in a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook. 

[Runnin_Ute]

Notmally keep 8-12 pens inked. Can be same color, but not same ink. (ie, Lamy Turquoise and Levenger Blue Bahama or Edelstein Topaz) Don't usually match ink color to pen but it does happen.  The Platinum 3776 Century Borgogne is almost always inked with Diamine Merlot is an example.  My Pelikan 140, which I bought in August 2017, except for two early fills of something else (Diamine Sherwood Green?) has been filled continuously with Pelikan 4001 Blue Black. As it's a mild iron gall it's used for addressing letters among other things.  A letter I finished today had not less than three different colors in it in the equivalent of two A4 pages front and back.

 

Right now I have the following in a pen

Blackstone Sydney Harbour Blue 

Levenger Forest Green 

Birmingham Ohio River 

Diamine Merlot 

KWZI El Dorado 

Edelstein Olivine 

Edelstein Topaz 

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black

Pelikan 4001 Violet 

Just finished a fill of Ferris Wheel Press Writing Desk 

 

[PJohnP]

I generally match ink colour with pen barrel colour as much as possible. 

 

This is not from some personal esthetic rule, but a very practical one.  If an ink stains the barrel in a (somewhat) similar colour, careful cleaning should keep the staining from completely ruining the pen.  I realised this would be an advantage many years back when I tested BSB with a blue demonstrator Pelikan M205.  The experiment did show some (eventually) reversible staining from BSB, and I stuck to that approach in the main.  Aside from that, another practical point is that I'm not constantly confused about what colour is in a given pen when I have several at hand.

 

Here and there with some proven "safe" inks, I vary from that approach, but it's a regular thing with me now to (roughly) match colours.

 

 

John P.

[knarflj]

Years ago, I used to use only a couple of ink colours: a blue for most writing and Diamine Amaranth for grading and editing.  Of course, back then I only had three pens.   But I used to like the consistency of all having all my notes and journal entries in the same colour. 

 

Somewhere along the line I decided to try changing colours, and now it seems odd if I write successive journal entries, or sermon notes from successive weeks in the same colour.  Changing it up helps find what I'm looking for if I want to refer back, plus I can write with a colour that more or less matches my mood.  I use mostly extra-fine and fine nibs, though, so I rarely have more than three or four pens inked at once.

 

I do have a couple of notebooks that I use for taking notes on things I read.  In these, I try to keep with a single ink for all notes from a given book, then use something different for the next book. 

 

I don't match ink colours with pens, exactly, but I coordinate them -- I like the colours to harmonize, at least.

[InesF]

It was only during my first 45 (or so) years of fountain pen writing when I stuck to only two colours: Waterman Blue and Waterman Green with using each of them separately for some time and mixing them into a medium intense teal for most of the time during the years. The teal was my proud "discovery" and was so satisfying for me that I never looked for something else.

 

Meanwhile, I'm happy about discovering the whole range of ink colours and use them in sets of three or four in parallel. I do no longer differentiate between business and private use - all colours are good for all purposes.

However, teal or petrol (including turquoise) and purple in all degrees of saturation are the colours I still use the most.