Wearingeul - King Lear

August 10

Wearingeul – King Lear

I’m sure I have more than enough inks already, but sometimes an opportunity rises to explore a new brand that wasn’t on my radar before. Some time ago Scrittura Elegante – a stationery shop from the Netherlands – announced that they would stop their business. Definitely a sad thing: this lovely little webshop carried some interesting and lesser-known brands, with Wearingeul being one of them. They started a sale to empty the warehouse, and I took this opportunity to place a last order, loading up on couple of Wearingeul inks.

Wearingeul is a stationery brand from South Korea, that gets its inspiration from arts & literature. In their own words: “We re-interpret novels and poetry with colors. You can find characteristic inks with stories and also notes/papers which are suitable for ink users.”

The ink under review is named after the tragedy of King Lear written by William Shakespeare. The bard tells the deeply sad tale of a king that falls into poverty and slowly descends into total madness. King Lear is an unsaturated grey-green with a red-pink shimmer (I don't use shimmer myself, so I haven't explored this aspect of the ink - I leave the shimmer particles at ease at the bottom of the bottle). The ink’s grey-green gives off an old-and-worn vibe that fits the desperation of the decrepit king, with the red-pink shimmer symbolizing his descent into madness.

Again, Waeringeul delivers an ink that completely fits my personal taste. This pale and muted grey-green ink is really beautiful, giving off a firm vintage vibe. It instantly reminded me of J. Herbin Vert Empire that gives me a similar feel. The colours are fairly different though, with this King Lear being a much greyer-looking ink (see also related inks). Like other Wearingeul inks, this one also writes with sub-par lubrication, making it a bad ink for dry pens where the writing feel is fairly scratchy.

Although the ink is pale and undersaturated, it still manages to provide sufficient contrast with the paper in most pens. But its sweet spot is definitely a wet writer with a finer nib, and this for two reasons: 1/ the increased ink flow of a wet pen compensates for King Lear’s sub-par lubrication, and 2/ you get a more saturated line which keeps the otherwise heavy shading of this ink under control. Again a beautifully complex ink for the ink connoisseur who is willing to spend some time to discover that perfect combination of pen/nib/paper where the ink shows its full glory.

Wearingeul King Lear writes fairly light and unsaturated, and needs a wet pen to compensate for this. Surprisingly, contrast is quite ok even when using a dry-writing pen. Not so for lubrication, which is terrible when combined with a dry writer, resulting in unpleasant and scratchy writing. Using a wet pen solves the lubrication issue, and also increases the ink’s saturation. This combination is what the ink needs to truly blossom. King Lear works with a wide range of papers, and looks good on both white and more creamy ones. Personally, I prefer this ink on slightly off-white paper like Midori – absolutely beautiful.

To illustrate the colour span of this Wearingeul ink, I did a swab on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. King Lear shows a moderately wide saturation range, from a wispy grey-green up to a much more saturated version that still maintains that vintage feeling grey-green colour. This wide contrast range makes it a strong shader, especially with dry writers that lean towards the left side of the contrast range.

On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – the ink behaved perfectly. There is no visible smearing at all. Water resistance is exceptionally good for a dye-based ink. The ink’s grey base colour remains firmly attached to the paper and can survive even longer exposures to water. Definitely an ink that can survive an accident. With its serious looks it won’t be out-of-place at the office, and make for a nice change from more traditional blacks and blues.

I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap 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 my M-nib Lamy Safari
The name of the paper used, written with a B-nib Lamy Safari
A small text sample, written with a wet writing M-nib Pelikan M120
Source of the quote, written with a Lamy Dialog 3 with M gold nib
Drying times of the ink on the paper, with the M-nib Lamy Safari

King Lear works almost flawlessly with all my test papers. I did notice though that the ink’s low lubrication shows more on very smooth and hard-surface paper: the nib doesn’t glide well and you need more force to draw the pen across the paper. Wet pens tend to compensate for this, but I still liked the writing feel better on the more absorbent papers that draw more ink from the nib. The ink can handle both pure white and cream-coloured paper, but it’s the slightly off-white paper where the aesthetics work best. The ink looks absolutely stunning on e.g. Midori paper.

I used photos for the writing samples above to get the most accurate results. In scans, the contrast is exaggerated and the ink’s colour loses much of its punch. See the scanned image below:

Below you’ll find some zoomed-in parts of writing samples. Notice the high shading contrast in the paper names, which were written with a dry Lamy Safari (B-nib). With wet pens, shading gets much more subtle, which I personally prefer.

Writing with different nib sizes
The photo below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing (written on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). The initial lines were written with Lamy Safaris. The ink looks a bit undersaturated, but contrast is good enough to make for easy reading. Unfortunately, dry pens and low lubrication don’t work together well: the writing feel with the Safari is not good! Using a wet pen solves problems all over the board: saturation increases, flow and writing feel improve dramatically, and shading becomes more aesthetically pleasing. My personal favourite is the wet Pelikan M120 with M-nib, which shows off this King Lear in all its glory.

Related inks
To compare this Wearingeul King Lear 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. King Lear stands on its own among its peers. J. Herbin Vert Empire has a similar vibe, but cannot compete with the grey-ness of this King Lear.

Inkxperiment – lost and FOUND (part 2)
As a personal challenge, I try to create interesting drawings using only the ink I’m reviewing. I really enjoy the couple of hours I spend on these monochrome little paintings – experimenting with the ink and discovering all the shades that can be extracted from it.

Inspiration for this drawing comes from the Witcher 3 game I’m currently playing, with a Mountain Troll chasing after a damsel in distress. In this second drawing the flesh-devouring monster has FOUND the fair maiden. Too bad that she climbed into a high tower – out of reach from the hungry troll.

I started with an A4 piece of HP photo paper. I first used some washi tape and a paper mask to cover parts of the drawing. Next, I drew in the central background with water-diluted ink applied through a kitchen towel. Left and right parts were coloured in with cotton swabs. Finally I drew in the young woman with a fine brush, and added some finishing touches with pure King Lear. The resulting picture shows what can be achieved with this Wearingeul ink in a more artistic context. This grey-green ink surely is a dream to draw with!

With this drawing, the two-part “Lost and Found” mini-series of drawings is complete. Below you see them side by side. These two pieces nicely complement each other: both muted, soft-toned colours with heavy grey undertones.

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.

I started by using a “focal zoom” filter centered on the fair maiden, that softened up the picture a bit. Next I used an over-exposure filter, and brightened the colours. The result is similar to the computational troll version. The original inkxperiment drawing looks better though.

Conclusion
Wearingeul King Lear is a winner in my book: a beautiful grey-green that gives off a strong vintage vibe – a faded and toned-down look that I personally find truly wonderful. The ink’s lubrication is not so good, but that’s easily compensated for with a wet-writing pen. And for artwork, this King Lear is definitely a winner. Another great ink from Wearingeul!

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

Backside of writing samples on different paper types

August 10

Thank you for reviewing such an intriguing ink, which seems perfect for artwork :thumbup:

I really enjoyed the colour/contrast on cream paper

I thoroughly enjoyed your art work, very textured, dynamic. It has a photographic B&W quality. For some reason, it reminded me of Būnuel/Dalí's surrealistic Un Chien Andalou.

Looking forward for more stimulating reviews 🙏

August 11

Wow, what a review! So many papers!

Thank you for sharing this intriguing ink.

My only other comment is that King Lear is not the tragedy of a poor king. He is quite wealthy, and the play begins with his telling his three daughters that he is ready to divide his kingdom among them before he becomes too old to rule effectively. As a result of this decision and the way that he tries to carry it out and his daughters (two of them) scheme, Lear ends up wandering the heath in a kind of mad self-exile in a storm, his sanity ebbing away. He seems like a destitute beggar on the heath, but he is in fact the aged, wealthy king struggling with grief, remorse, and loss of reason.

The color of this ink may match well with some folks' visions of the color of the storm that rages on that heath, or the more figurative storm going on in Lear's mind.

August 11

Great review as usual! As I've often mentioned, your most meritorious comparison of related inks is what I love completely. Thanks!! It's really too bad that that store is closing. I adore this type of ink ("colour"), for exactly the reason you depicted. Actually (for me) it's not necessarily the colour itself (which of course is more than "nice") but rather its subtlety. Not any ol' greyish green (as you did say) but more of a very artistically-crafted shade or nuance. In a sense somewhat like Stipula's Verde Muschiato, which reveals, yes, more brown and less grey but which is IMO also a very talented inconspicuous, hard-to-define "greenness", somewhere with a story behind it.

August 11

Great color, great review. :thumbup: Thanks!

August 12

Thank you, @namrehsnoom, for your alway so comprehensive ink reviews! :thumbup:

What you introduce here, is an ink with interesting hue (me too, I started to like muted inks) but maybe still a bit to unsaturated for what I expect for daily use. I bought Mad Hatter some time ago, looking quite similar to King Lear but is even more pale! I tried hard but didn't succeed to find a suitable pen.

I like your ink experiment! Again, the original looks the best for me. This time you surprised with a sequel from the last ink review! Great idea and great combo! 👍