I’m so excited to announce our very first palettes! Because I’m working from my personal ink stocks at the moment, and most of you have purchased ink from me at various conventions, it was difficult to find a set of inks that will be something you haven’t seen before. However, because I’m working off my personal stock, I could also include some small-batch inks that are no longer manufactured.
If you like any of the colors that are not in production at present, I do have more in reserve that I’ll be happy to send to you, and I’ll put the color on my sourcing list to find a comparable ink.
Now, let’s get to the ink!
Business Palette
- Birmingham Pen Company – Electron
- Pilot Iroshizuku – Asa-gao
- Pelikan Edelstein – Sapphire
- Birmingham Pen Company – Steamboat
- Birmingham Pen Company – Coking Coal Black
Details
This palette is a nice introduction to some of my favorite blues and an obligatory black. You can see they’re all different temperatures. Here are some fun facts:
Electron will sheen a smidge on quality paper, but in general isn’t a sheen ink.
Asa-gao and Sapphire may look similar in the picture, but they write very differently. Sapphire writes more on the purple end and saturated, whereas Asa-gao is very bright and light.
The Steamboat and Coking Coal Black formulations I have are from before Birmingham Pen Company was formulating their ink in-house. All their inks are small-batch, but there will be slight differences between the formulation I have and their in-house products.
Steamboat has a subtle purple in a blue/black, and Coking Coal Black is a black with just a hint of something else as you write.
Creative Palette
- Diamine InkVent – Winter Miracle (sheen & shimmer)
- Diamine – Imperial Blue
- Birmingham Pen Company – The Golden Arm
- Birmingham Pen Company – Petroleum
- Birmingham Pen Company – Strawberry Twinkle (shimmer)
Details
These are some fun, and some odd, inks. First, we have two shimmer inks – Winter Miracle and Strawberry Twinkle.
Shimmer inks are a more “advanced” ink, meaning you’ll need to take a bit of care with them. They have particulate (glitter) in the inks, which a) can settle and b) can change the pH of the ink. Before using a shimmer ink, you need to shake the container and remix all the particulate. However, because that particulate settles out of the ink, if you keep the ink in your pen those particles can clog up your pen’s internals! Be sure to clean out your pen after you’ve used the shimmer ink. Definitely don’t put shimmer ink in your brand new high-dollar pen until you’ve learned its quirks, but it’s perfect for the cheap pens, like any you may have purchased from me, to learn on.
Winter Miracle is also a sheen ink! That’s a lot of fun in one ink.
Imperial Blue is an odd little ink. You see from the picture, my little swab I do on the outside of the vials shows it’s purple, but on the page it’s blue. Imperial Blue starts purple and dries lighter. The label on the bottle was slick with some coating and for some reason it stayed purple there. Definitely an ink to try out on different papers!
Petroleum is another one to try out on different papers.
I’ve added a tutorial for how to get the ink out of the vials (including opening and resealing them!). Your shipment comes with a little plastic pipette to help you transfer the ink, so please check your box for that! If you lose it or need another, please email me or leave a message in the comments and I’ll ship you another with your next subscription parcel.