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How adventurous are you with inks?

This is such a great ink. Not only an exceptional performer, but the shading and colour change as you write is bewitching. :thumbup:

There's also an ink from Ecclesiastical Stationary Supplies which is similar to Diamine, you get 10ml more for about 1 GBP less than the Diamine.
 
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I prefer darker colors, but made dark through richness of color, not by adding black. My favorite ink color is green, my favorite ink is Diamine Sherwood Green. It is a dark rich green with no black component. It is also very well behaved.

Diamine Majestic Blue is another rich color: a dark blue, but not a blue-black. However it isn't as well behaved. It takes a long time to dry, smudges, and tends to clog the pen if let idle for a while.

Noodler's is a bit hit or miss. Some are fantastic, others not so much. Noodler's Black is probably the best black ink on the market. Intensely black, permanent, and well behaved on even today's low quality paper. Other favorites are Navy, Green Marine, and Zhivago.
 
Just ordered some “Kentucky Bluegrass” Green and “Ice Rink” Blue form Birmingham Ink Co in an effort to support a more boutique company as per my prior posting (#15).

I sprang for the 120ml size @19.00 USD in the green.

I went with a smaller size (30ml) in the blue as that will augment my my go to blue-Lamy
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Here is everything I currently own (with a separate key in case anything isn't readable).

P1050141.JPG INKS KEY.jpg

green -> blue -> purple -> red -> orange -> brown
(and one bottle of black)

Nothing particularly bright or extravagant, and no shimmering metallic floaty bits, but a fair chunk of the colour spectrum. Albeit at the darker end of each colour. All of these get used (I got rid of the one ink I couldn't abide), and all stand out well enough to be readable on white paper, without being too garish or eye straining. I tend to have three separate colours in play at any time, but which colours they are, does vary. There's always a blue (or nearly blue, such as Teal or Bilberry) available for use in that three. If I was still working, I think I'd be happy using most of those in an office setting.

For the record, the one I got rid of was Diamine Amaranth, which was far too much of a vivid pink for my liking.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I got a couple of free bottles of ink with a pen purchase in a Valentines day offer this year. They were 30ml each of Diamine Violet and Passion Red.

The Violet is OK, by which I mean tolerable. Probably not a colour I would buy, but not one that I will never use either. It's a little on the pale side for me, but still stands off the page well enough for general use. When it's empty... if I live long enough... I'd likely stick to Bilberry instead. It may improve with some evaporation though, at least in terms of saturation.

The Passion Red might need mixing for me to make friends with it. Initial impression is that it is a bit wishy washy, and leaning a little towards a salmon pink. Obviously pen and paper choices will make a difference, and I might find something it works well with. There's a good chance I'll beef it up a bit though, maybe with a dose of Oxblood or Writers Blood.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Five more bottles of Diamine should be here on Tuesday. One green, one blue, one red, and two browns. One of them (Chocolate Brown), is an ink I've been using in cartridges for quite some time, but wanted a bottle so I can use it in other pens.

The red (Red Dragon) is for highlighting and annotations, but the others should all be dark/bold enough for general use, and not strain the eyes on a full page of writing.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
These were the inks that arrived this week.

IMG_20220506_012744_DRO.jpg

Red Dragon and Sargasso Sea are everything I hoped they would be, colour wise. So far, they seem very well behaved too. Both really stand boldly off the page.

Chocolate Brown was already a favourite of mine, but I wanted a bottle, rather than just the cartridges I had. Macassar is almost as nice - but not quite. A slightly more sombre shade of brown, I would say. Still an excellent all-purpose ink, but the Chocolate Brown has a little more warmth to it.

Salamander I am unsure about. The "swamp water" colour isn't as saturated as I expected, plus it is quite a dry ink. This can leave it looking a bit weak on the page. In moderate light levels, the green sinks back into a rather uninspiring grey, but the green does pop out from that murkiness in brighter light.

Not dark enough (at the current wetness) as an all purpose ink, but not bright enough as a contrast ink either, so how/why/when I might want to use it, isn't clear right now. I might warm to it in time though, particularly if I add a teeny smear of liquid soap with a pin or needle, to increase the wetness a little.

20220506_012928.jpg

Out of all my current Diamine inks, Salamander, Passion Red, and Violet are the weakest ones. I may give them all a wetness boost in time, otherwise I think I'd be constantly reaching for something else with more "presence".
 
I have only dipped my feet into fountain pens and inks. I have a half bottle of Troublemaker Abalone, a few Troublemaker samples Milky Ocean, Starry Night Blue and Petrichor, I also have a half filled bottle of Noodler's 54th Massachusetts. These were given to me from someone who found them after a relative passed. I use them in a china pen I found at an auction.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Update:

My revised "colour wheel" of Diamine bottles...

20220511_022529.jpg

... Diamine cartridges...

20220511_022424.jpg

... and other oddments...

IMG_20220511_022711.jpg

The trap I keep falling into of late, is inking up pens with something that isn't dissimilar enough, to something else I already have inked, so I don't get enough contrast on the page when switching pens. Recently I had four pens inked, but two were Diamine Teal and Quink Black (too similar), plus a couple of red that were also far too similar.
 

Doc4

Stumpy in cold weather
Staff member
The trap I keep falling into of late, is inking up pens with something that isn't dissimilar enough, to something else I already have inked, so I don't get enough contrast on the page when switching pens.

I like to have enough difference between my inked-up pens to make sure there's a noticeable difference between them ... so I can make one note with one, then a second note with another on the same page, and easily tell the difference later on.

I find that nib size can add distinction between otherwise similar inks.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I like to have enough difference between my inked-up pens to make sure there's a noticeable difference between them ... so I can make one note with one, then a second note with another on the same page, and easily tell the difference later on.

I find that nib size can add distinction between otherwise similar inks.

That's my aim too, but I don't always succeed in it :001_rolle

The four inks I currently have in play, aren't nearly dissimilar enough. I was too eager to try out new inks though.
 
I've finally settled on a couple of inks. One straight from the bottle (my fav, Noodlers Zhivago) and one mixed (½&½ Waterman's serenity blue & Waterman's Purple Passion which I call bluple). I keep lots of other colors but always have at least two pens filled with those inks.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
I think the ink used is selected by the subject matter.
I wouldn't write a check with flaming red, but a spreadsheet or a Christmas card would probably be fine.
A journal or log you could use whatever strikes your fancy (not that your fancy needs striking), but a form begs black or a solid blue.
I suppose even with letter writing this applies, as a note to a company seems to suit a stable color, while a letter to a close friend of many years could be quite different.
 
Depends what I am using it for. For personal notes then I am a bit more adventurous, but anything work related I keep quite strictly to dark inks like blue, black, grey or a dark green.

I am looking at trying Montblanc's Burgundy Red soon.
 
I'm conservative when filling my fountain pens: black, blue/black, medium to dark blue, and red. After that, I've about a dozen other colours, but only use them for dipping.
 

Old Hippie

Somewhere between 61 and dead
I keep a ball writer for triplicate forms and other serious matters. The Pilot Vanishing Point is inked, at the moment, with Noodler's "Rome Burning" because I like the purple ink with gold flames, especially on a "wicky" paper.

O.H.
 
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