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Taisho Roman inks are a new line from Teranishi and I’m continuing on this week with another two colors from the lineup. If you missed part 1 of this review, make sure to go back and read it!
I discovered the entire Teranishi ink brand at St. Louis Art Supply where the ink is offered in 40mL glass bottles for $21.50 (about $0.54 per mL) or in 1.5mL samples for $2.50. Because I have used samples for this review, there is no photo of the actual bottles but refer to part 1 for a look at them.
Taisho Roman Modern Red is a well-saturated red with a hint of shading and a touch of sheen occasionally.
However, I was surprised at how Modern Red reacted to various types of paper. Sometimes this ink shows as a bold, bright red. Other papers reveal the orange and brown undertones of the ink. The ink can also show very different textures on each paper.
Teranishi Taisho Roman Modern Red on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Modern Red on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Modern Red on Midori MD paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet is the second ink in today’s review. This purple also has a bit of shading and plenty of blue in the undertones.
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet on Midori MD paper:
Which of the Teranishi inks 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 2 appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Why is there a need for an explanation of the format of an ink-review, you might ask?! Well, because the ink reviews on Scrively are not like all the other ink reviews that you will find out there. This, again, is because Scrively is written by a lefty. Hence, I have walked that extra mile and made the effort to come up with a slightly twisted own format for ink reviewing that aims at catering my needs – and hopefully the needs of many more southpaws out there. It is my sincere hope that I will be able to serve the lefty-fountain pen community with ink-reviews that are meaningful – in the hope for ever more lefties to start daring to pick up a fountain pen and also experience the joy of writing with fountain pens, which really is a pleasure indeed. Of course, I do also hope that the reviews are enjoyable to the ‘right’-handed fellows out there, too .
So what is special about the ink reviews here on Scrively?
Well, lefties sometimes (think they) have a fountain pen issue, because the writing from left to right causes the writing hand to slide over what has just been written (the “writing line”), thus smudging and smearing the fresh, wet ink all over the place. This writing style is called side-writing and is the way most lefties, unless they’ve retrained themselves, tend to write. This includes myself as well.
Now there are a lot many well-meant tips out there on the internet on how, as a lefty, you might succeed in retraining your writing style so as to be able to write as if you basically were right-handed. Underwriting, for instance, is one of those “strategies” which are considered to be very effective, because this technique will keep your writing-hand below the writing line. With that, you will most likely have next to zero restrictions when it comes to fountain pen writing, i.e. you will be able to use all the nibs (flex, broad…anything that puts a lot of ink on the paper and, in turn, will take an eternity to dry), inks (no need for caring about drying times), and paper (so called fountain pen-friendly paper which is quite “ink resistant” and causes the ink to dry slowly – that helps the ink to develop more…let’s just call it “character” here) that right handed people can use, too. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
No, it doesn’t. At least not to me. Why? Personally, I tried to practice underwriting for a little while. Not more than some days, though. So yeah, technically, I can absolutely see this working. No doubt. However, I just refuse to strain and twist my wrist and joints into the most uncomfortable of positions for weeks or months, just to become sort of something I am not – a wannabe righty. To me, a writing-tool has to accommodate my needs, not the other way around.
On top of that, all this effort and stress of retraining your writing habits, at least in my own experience, is absolutely not necessary. That is, if you just consider a few things, that really ain’t a big deal: you just combine the right nib-sizes, paper-choice and ink. That might sound complicated, but really isn’t at all. In short, with nibs you stick with EF to M. With paper, you just refrain from the super-duper fountain pen-paper, that will have that ink laying on it’s surface for ages to show all that shading. Taking that into consideration, you are all set to become a very happy fountain pen user.
Disclaimer: Provided you have an approach that is similar to mine, i.e. you are more of a functional writer with a great appreciation for the aesthetics of writing (paper, pen & ink) while not being overambitious with artistic writing or calligraphy or a longing for thick strokes, a lot of line variation (i.e. flex nibs), very wet nibs/inks or paper that brings the best details out of an ink. Then you might really have to become an underwriter. Personally, I am more than good with a regular line and seeing at least most of the nice characteristics of the ink I use.
Having that said as a rather long prelude, let’s now turn to the format that I came up with and that I do employ for all of my ink reviews.
As a lefty, I will do all ink reviews using EF- to M- nibs. These do not lay down too much ink on the paper. The ink will then, of course, dry much faster than with a broader nib, which is what the typical lefty might want in everyday pen usage. Hence, I am mostly interested in how the ink performs and what the ink looks like (ink characteristics) using any of those nib-sizes. This also means that I am not using any flex- or whatever-nibs in my reviews, since I do (for now) simply not care how an ink behaves or looks with those ones. Since I am, of course, nevertheless interested in what the color (and some shading) really looks like on paper, each ink review will contain an ink swab.
On top of that, I will place special emphasis on the wetness and the drying times of the ink which, again, is of special interest to lefties. Besides the drying time, I came up with something that – besides the “Regular Smear Test“ – I call the “Left-Page Smear Test”. First of all, I do write with all the inks that I test for about one week, using them as my everyday ink for this period of time. This is the amount of time where I can really see how the ink performs in various conditions and where I will also fill a couple of pages in my notebooks. The “Regular Smear Test” then just comments on the “smeariness” (is that a word even?) of the ink that one would experience when actually writing “regularly”. The “Left-Page Smear Test” responds to the fact that, as a lefty, when writing on the right page of a notebook, your writing hand will rest (for longer periods of time) on the left page of the notebook. The ink on that left page is already dry, but the extended resting of the palm on that dry ink will occasionally cause smudging. And this is what the “Left-Page Smear Test” is all about: Will the dry ink on the left page smudge?
When it comes to the “testing ground”, which is the paper on which I test, I will always test on two types of paper: Leuchtturm 1917 and regular standard photocopying paper. Why?
For the Leuchtturm 1917, this is one of my (and many other people’s) preferred notebook. First of all, Leuchtturm is for many reasons among the favorite notebook options for many Bullet Journalists, which I am one of. Second, the paper is quite fountain pen friendly and lefty friendly. This means that it is just ink resistant enough to show you some of the nicer ink characteristics such as shading, while it is also just absorbent enough to make it the perfect choice for lefties. On top of that, the paper is slightly off-white or ivory, as are many notebooks out there, so you will be able to see what the ink looks like on such a paper.
For the standard photocopying paper: this is still the standard paper that is present in very many offices around the world, and you might also wanna use a fountain pen at work, the place where you most probably spend minimum 8 hours per day. Not everybody will have the option to pick whichever paper he or she would like to use at work. I, for one, am a PhD-candidate, which means annotating articles and grading student course papers – no way around standard paper here. The situation might be similar for many out there. Standard photocopying paper is also highly absorbent, which makes it a good option for many lefties because the ink basically dries – or rather: gets absorbed – instantly. This is, of course, the tradeoff of that kind of paper in combination with fountain pen ink: most ink will look rather flat (i.e. no shading), because the ink just gets ‘soaked in’ straight away.
Having that said, I do not test ink on e.g. Tomoe River or Clairefontaine paper, because I and many lefties do not write on such kind of paper. For the interested reader, ink reviews on such paper are widely available in other corners of the web, where my ‘right’-handed fellows do an excellent job in reviewing ink.
So, in short, the ink reviews on Scrively follow the scheme below:
Review criteria
Testing ground
Lefty-Rating
.
For providing accuracy and consistency when it comes to the representation of the ink’s color, all scans of my ink reviews are produced with a Doxie Flip mobile scanner @600 dpi.
I sincerely hope that this section will be helpful to you and that you enjoy reading it!
Ink name: Caran d’Ache “Ultra Violet”
Unit capacity: 50 ml (glas flacon)
Price: ca. 26 €
Price per ml: ca. 0,52 €
| Leuchtturm 1917 | Standard copy paper | |
| Color | matte, dusty dark purple | flat violet-purple |
| Saturation | high | high |
| Shading | pronounced – dusty-pale to dark | some |
| Feathering | none | yes |
| Bleed-through | none | yes |
| Wetness | moderately wet – lubricates nicely | ok |
| Drying time | 18 sec. | 1 sec. |
| Smudging when dry | no | no |
| Regular smear test | ok | ok |
| Left-page smear test | ok | ok |
I would like to take the opportunity to thank The Pen Company for supporting the review of this ink. You can also buy the Caran d’Ache ink in their webshop (no affiliate – just a friendly pointer).
Purple inks are something special, as they are a bit unusual. They are not your usual green, red, blue or black. At the same time they can be about as legit as a blue or black ink, for instance in business or school settings. This makes them an interesting alternative to the aforementioned – with the potential to be a bit of a signature ink to be written with.
The Caran d’Ache “Ultra Violet” from the “Chromatics” ink series is, colorise, a wonderful example of a purple/violet ink. It appears as a matte, dusty dark purple on chream’ish paper such as the Leuchtturm – which is how I enjoy it the most.
On standard white copy paper, the color appears as a bit of a flat violet-purple. It still looks beautiful, but is less interesting – which is also due to the shading being much less pronounced on standard paper than on the less absorbent Leuchtturm paper, where the ink shades in pronounced ways.
Ultra Violet is a rather wet ink, which lubricates nicely. Unfortunately, some of this wetness and lubrication seems to come at a price. In the test here, it causes very long dry times (18 sec. +) on less absorbent paper such as the Leuchtturm, and feathering as well as bleed through on the more absorbent standard paper (where it dries really fast, as it is sucked into the paper rather swiftly).
Pricewise, this ink is definitely on the very pricy side of things. More expensive than the Pelikan Edelstein or the Graf von Faber-Castell inks, and even more expensive than the (in Europe) pricy Pilot Iroshizuku inks, the Caran d’Ache commands a very steep premium.
As for its ‘leftyness’, there is unfortunately no stamp of approval. On some papers, the dry time is simply too long for that, really. On other papers, the ink gets sucked right in and bleeds through, which isn’t necessarily more useful.
I hope this was helpful – feel free to check out my other ink reviews as well.
The post Caran d’Ache “Ultra Violet”: Ink Review appeared first on Scrively - note taking & writing.
Right now, in the Midwest, it is no longer winter but its not quite spring yet. This in-between weather is similar to my in-between feeling in my stationery world as well.
I am almost finished with a notebook, a Stalogy A5 that I’ve been using to journal. I’m not quite finished but close enough to consider what the next notebook will be. Do I stay in the same notebook cover (Curnow turquoise cover) and just buy another Stalogy notebook or do I try to mix things up? To be honest, actually being at a point where I’ve almost finished a notebook is a new sensation for me. I often get bored or lose momentum on a particular notebook far sooner than I reach the end of the book. It feels a little risky to mess with a formula that has actually had me writing just to try something new.
In my stationery cupboard, I have a few notebooks that I could pull off the shelf to be my next journal:
Okay, many more than a few. I recently bought a several more Midi sized Paperblanks with the 110 and 120 gsm paper. Like so many people, when you find the paper you love, you stockpile it. We have all seen how quickly paper can change or be discontinued. I prefer the 68gsm Tomoe River paper and have been stockpiling it for sometime as well. I actually traded some of the lighter weight OG Tomoe River for the 68gsm because, as a lefty, I just can’t justify the dry-time/smear-likelihood of the lighter weight. I’ll sacrifice a little sheen not to have ink all over me, my notebook and everything else.
I’ve been on a purple ink trend all winter. Both my daily use pens (Don’t shoot me. They are both Sailor ProGear Slim fountain pens with EF nibs.) have been filled with purple-y inks (Monteverde Birthday Cake and Lennon Tool Bar Morning Glory which are almost identical and Monteverde Blueberry Muffin which is much more of a burgundy than purple). The Monteverde Birthday Cake is a seriously underrated ink. It has a great range of shading and it sheens under the right conditions too.
I’ve been using these three inks so consistently that that I have actually put a dent into the amount of ink in the bottles. Is this the year I actually finish a bottle of ink or am I ready to move to a different color family?
What’s your feeling on this mid-season malaise? Do you feel the itch to change things up or, if you’ve had success with a pen/ink/paper combo, do you stick with it? Do you have favorites you go back to time and time again?
The post That In-Between Feeling appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
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