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Kyoto TAG has released two new inks in their Kyo-no-oto line: Seiheki and Yurushiiro. As with all inks in this line, the ink comes packaged in heavy card stock with the ink line in letterpress print. A big thank you to Dromgoole’s for sending these bottles for review!
Both Seiheki and Yurushiiro come in 40mL glass bottles priced at $28 a bottle bringing the ink to $0.70 per mL – not an inexpensive ink, but far from the $1 per mL of some recent Sailor inks!
As soon as I opened the package, I noticed that the ink looked almost cloudy. Not opaque like pigmented ink, but not as clear as I would expect.
You can see a bit of particulate in the ink – it isn’t sparkling though.
Swatching the inks, it became obvious that the consistency is unusual – there is definitely an opaqueness present. This didn’t translate into an actual thickness of the ink while writing, however.
The first ink I’ll look at here is Kyo-no-oto Seiheki. From the Dromgoole’s site:
“SEIHEKI is a dull blue-green color that would look similar to the daytime sky. ‘Sei’ means blue and ‘heki’ means green-blue stone which originates from ancient times
The color of nature, especially the sky, would stay in the briefest instant. The shorter the time remain, the memory of the color may even be more beautifully remembered. Especially in the middst of the change of the seasons, the color will change every moment. ‘Shogyo-mujo’ is the Japanese word to describe the transience of all phenomena. Many things are impermanent and change with short lives. Those new colors are our message to describe such momentary colors with lyrical images based on traditional Kyoto colors.
*This is a new type of ink combining fine pigments and dyes. The hue changes at the beginning and end of writing.
To realize the special effect, this ink contains small particles of pigment. Please wash the ink feeder and pens completely before you will use other ink with the same pen.”
Seiheki and Yurushiiro are pigment inks, but only a small amount of pigment. While I have inked up pens with each of the inks here today, I have not yet had enough time to report on the writing experience.
Seiheki is a lovely blue-green close to Wearingeul Resurrection with a touch more blue.
On Midori MD paper:
On Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
On the same CAL paper as above, but angled to show a bit of the texture on paper:
And finally on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:
Tomoe River paper seems to bring out an almost pebbled texture in the swatch of ink.
The second ink in this review is Kyo-no-oto Yurushiiro. Again from the Dromgoole’s site:
“During the Heian Period, there was a color that was not allowed to use except for certain social statuses such as royalty. Safflower red was one of those colors because of its preciousness. ‘YURUSHIIRO’ means ‘allowed color’ for everybody. ‘YURUSHIIRO is a much lighter version of Safflower red. The ink color shade was allowed for every person and was often used for daily life during the Heian period.”
Again, Yurushiiro has the same consistency and comes with the same warning that the ink contains both pigment and dye and that pens should be cleaned out well before refilling with a different ink. In writing, Yurushiiro is close to Pilot Iroshizuku Hana-Ikada (one of the three new inks from Pilot)
On Midori MD paper:
On Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
Again the CAL paper but angled to show the color and texture of the ink:
And finally on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:
Again, the pebbled texture shows up only on the Tomoe River paper.
What do you think of this new type of ink? I’m thrilled to get a chance to play with it for a while and I’ll report back on the writing experience soon!
DISCLAIMER: The ink in this post was provided free of charge by Dromgoole’s for the purpose of this review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Ink Review: New Kyo-no-oto Inks appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
I get so excited when I find a new line of ink! The manufacturer of this line is Teranishi and I’ve come across two lines of their ink – Guitar and Taisho Roman. I have three of the Taisho Roman inks to show today. I picked these up from St. Louis Art Supply for $18.95 each which works out to $0.47 per mL.
The external packaging for the Taisho inks is almost identical to some of the Taccia inks, perhaps giving hints to the actual ink manufacturer. The bottle contains 40mL of ink and has a small tag attached with space for a tiny swatch of the ink although the paper used for the tag is too absorbent to show the ink color accurately.
The three ink colors I have here are Gentle Green, Smoky Navy, and Opera Rose.
Opera Rose is an interesting color – a bit under saturated terracotta or salmon orange/pink/brown. It shades but not dramatically.
Papier Plume’s 011 ink is a few shades darker than Opera Rose, but the color is a match.
Smoky Navy has some great shading and is a lovely blue-black ink. Occasionally a hint of sheen shows up but only in the swatch.
I had a hard time finding a match to Smoky Navy in my collection. The lightest portion of the swatch is a match with Diamine Prussian Blue, and the darker areas appeared to match Robert Oster Thunderstorm, but the camera brings out much more green in Smoky Navy.
I saved my favorite of the batch for last. Gentle Green. It immediately reminded me of Taccia Sabimidori with the way is wrote blue but dried to a definite green.
When comparing Gentle Green to Sabimidori, though, the colors were further apart than I had imagined. The heavier applications of Sabimidori are close to the color in Gentle Green, but the overall color is quite different. Wearingeul Mad Hatter is a good match.
The first page below is Tomoe River (TR7) paper
Next is Midori MD paper – this paper is cream rather than the white of the other two examples.
Finally, Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper.
Here’s another shot of the Cosmo Air Light paper, turned to catch the sheen in both Gentle Green and Smoky Navy.
Scrolling through the photos of the paper types, you may have noticed how different the Taisho Roman inks appear on each. Gentle Green is the most obvious, but all three colors change between papers. I’ve photographed pairs of notebooks to show how much they can change.
Tomoe River 52gsm is on the left with Cosmo Air Light 83gsm on the right.
Cosmo Air Light 83gsm is on the left with Midori MD on the right. These don’t even look like the same inks.
So which ink and paper combination is your favorite?
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Ink Review: Taisho Inks, Part 1 appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Over at The Nib, Sam Wallman has created an illustrated history of the Pinkerton Agency — the original "private eyes," a nearly 200-year-old American corporation that essentially pioneered the privatization of domestic military intelligent services, most often weaponized against the working class. — Read the rest
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