Ink Drop Double-Up

Sorry to have dragged my feet sharing the most recent Ink Drop colors from Goulet Pens but sometimes priorities get a little shuffled. Alternately, you get a two-fer this month of both the August color offerings, described as the “best shading colors” and the September offerings “staff favorites”.

September “staff favorites” featured: Diamine Apple Glory, De Atramentis Sandalwood and Dianthus and Noodler’s El Lawrence and  Liberty Elysium. I used each of my Esterbrook vintage fountain pens (each with a different nib) to test these colors. The Liberty Elysium seemed to be the wettest inks I’ve ever used. I would recommend trying it out in a pen that feels particularly dry or very fine. All these colors were fun. I even liked the El Lawrence black though I have not bought a whole bottle of black ink because I so enjoy writing with colored inks. I’m hard-pressed to choose a shade of black to warrant a whole bottle. Do you use a lot of black ink? What’s your favorite color and why?

The August Ink Drop featured ink colors noted for its ability to shade and vary in color. Some people love this especially if you want to use flexible or stub nib pens. My doodles don’t show the quality but click through to the larger images on Flickr to see more details. I tested these with my flexible nib Parker vintage pen. The colors are Diamine Ancient Copper which is quite legendary on The Fountain Pen Network, DeAtramentis Steel Blue and R.L. Stevenson, Noodler’s Kiowa Pecan and Habanero. I loved the Steel Blue and Ancient Copper right out of the vials and loaded them up into my two favorite Kawecos and have been using them regularly. After testing all the colors, I love the Kiowa Pecan color and the quality of the R.L. Stevenson as well. This is one of my favorite sets yet.

I also thought you might enjoy seeing a bird’s eye view of what it looks like when I test inks and pens. I make a big mess.

My darling husband brings me rags from his print shop to use to clean up my pen mess and then the rag service takes them back, washes them and brings back fresh ones. Environmental and kind of pretty.

As for the inks, all these colors are available as samples from Goulet Pens or you can join Ink Drop yourself and get monthly surprise packages of ink. Each vial contains enough ink for one or two fills, depending on the size of your pen (I syringe fill Kawecos and can fill at least three small cartridges).

I use a Miquelrius medium flexible 300 grid paper book purchased from B+N for my ink tests.