Ink Swatch Wednesday: A Couple More Browns and a Swampy Green
I finally stopped at my local Maido and shopped around for some new inks. I ended up with a couple more browns, and a "swampy" green (thanks to Inkdependence Mike for the terminology). I'll explain more about why later. First, the ink swatches, closer up. Each swatch will be presented on Tomoe River (original, 52 gsm), and then Rhodia (I'm not sure of the paper specs; I don't use it much):
This Kuretake ink was a complete unknown to me. I seriously chose it because it said "Tea ink Chai" on the front of the packaging. 😅 I should've asked its price, because I might not have picked it up had I known it was $29.95 for 20mL. :smh:
It's a nice warm ink with some darker brown sheening where the ink pools. It sort of reminds me of Herbin Lie de Thé, but it might have a slightly different shade.
As one could infer from the ink name, Dominant Industry's Winter Wood is a cooler, darker brown ink. My memory of Diamine Inkvent 2023 Walnut seems similar to this ink, but I'll have to compare a swatch using my folded nib to be sure. I do feel like I will want to use this in the cooler months of fall and winter. It's kind of dark to be seasonally relevant to late spring and summer.
Sailor Shikiori Rikyucha is a really interesting "swampy" green-brown, which I never would've thought would appeal to me, before a few months ago. But when my brown and green ink era hit me, this one was a surprise like. And I loved it enough to buy a bottle.
As you can see, this ink behaves differently on the two papers. It has more of a reddish, rusty brown tone mixed with green on Tomoe River, and more of a cooler dark green-brown look on Rhodia. Sailor does chromoshading/chameleon inks so well. This ink does kind of a "Yurameku-style" color-changing thing on both papers where it goes on more of a darker green, and develops its browner tones upon drying.
I ended up writing up some of my thoughts on a sheet of Kokuyo Business paper with my long blade dip pen and Rikyucha ink, since I had a little left over from swatching:
Transcript for those who might not be able to read my writing:
I finally stopped at Maido to peruse their inks, partially because it's "ink swatch Wednesday," & partially because I've been itching to pick up some more inks anyway. I had finished my sample of Sailor Shikiori Rikyucha & wanted to pick up a bottle, but other than that, I had no plans. Annoyingly I had no connectivity in the store, so I couldn't look up any swatches, so the other two inks I picked up, I picked up blindly. You could kind of tell from the name "Winter Wood" that the ink would probably be a cool brown, but I had no idea what the Kuretake "Tea ink Chai" would look like. I assumed it'd be a form of brown, that's all!
I'm generally happy with the ink shades. I think Winter Wood is similar to Diamine Inkvent 2023 Walnut; I'll have to double check. I'm mainly disappointed in the Kuretake ink because it was $29.95 for 20mL, and the bottle seemed less filled than I expected. 😐 It's a decent warm brown, but not worth $29.95, IMO. Weirdly, searching online, there isn't much info about it, not even a swatch, so I guess my swatch will be somewhat helpful.
I guess I leaned toward browns & a known "swampy" green (Rikyucha) since I couldn't easily look up what other inks looked like, thanks to lack of connectivity. I wish stationery shops would offer swatch books for reference by default. 😕 It would make browsing for new inks a much better experience. Regardless, I'm happy I got to shop for some inks locally. Most of my ink-buying happens online, which is fine, but not as fun, or instantly gratifying. 😅
I used to post "digital ink" blog posts a long time ago by writing with a stylus on various devices (Tablet PCs, iPads, phones, etc.) and posting the resulting JPEGs, but so far I haven't been writing any blog posts using actual ink like I did above. I may start doing this more often. 🙂
Anyway, are you getting tired of brown and green inks from me? I do admit I'm surprised how long I've been obsessed with brown and green inks and haven't moved on yet, but my tastes can change at a snap of a finger, so keep an eye out. 😆
