A quote written in a dark blue from Diamine.
(Sorry, this came in a cartridge with a pen so not exactly sure what blue it is.)

It is from Crimson Shore by Preston & Child and made me laugh.
If you have ever had to use a microfiche machine, you know it's true.

"Two hours later, Constance sat back in her chair, blinking. The microfiche machine was a wonder of hideous 1980s technology, seemingly designed to cause blindness through prolonged use."

#SwatchWednesday #Quote #technology #research #FountainPens

"Jes had not allowed himself to grow fat or lazy in his position. Styke hated him a little for that, but as far as hate went it was like throwing a glass of water into the ocean."

Sins of Empire
Brian McClellan

The ink is Sugar Kelp from The Birmingham Pen Co. This is not usually in the family of colors that I love but this ink is super interesting. The more you lay down, the greener it looks. Some nice shading. I got it as part of one of the bundles that they do.

The quote is from a really good book. The second series about the Powder Mages. Super interesting. Politics, revolution, magic and battles. I loved the first series and the second is off to a great start.

#SwatchWednesday #FountainPens #Books #Scifi #Fantasy #Quote

Swatch Wednesday: Colorverse Black Hole

This was a gift from a friend who said it was more for the fun little bottle than anything exciting about the ink.  It’s a pretty cute little bottle and I didn’t have one since I think the only colorverse ink I have is a sample.

Colorverse Black Hole ink bottle, which has an unusual teardrop shaped base. This is the front view showing the bit sticking out on one side. The illustration has a stylized black hole and a little planet saying “SOS” on it.

Love that little picture on the front.  The bottle has a teardrop shaped base which I guess makes it a bit less likely to tip over and mostly just makes it interesting.

Colorverse Black Hole ink bottle, which has an unusual teardrop shaped base. This is thebottom view showing the teardrop shape, though it sits nice and flat because of the flat label on the front.

Inside, the ink is as one expects, a pleasant black.  There’s a tiny bit of sheen visible in the swatch on the right, and indeed I can see that in my writing occasionally if I look at it under a sufficiently bright light, but it’s more a cute coincidence than a regular feature of the ink on the paper I’m using.  Might be fun to try it on the iroful paper to see if it happens more consistently there; my current notebook is a leuchtterm.

My swatch card for Colorverse Black Hole, a black ink with a tiny hint of sheen in the bigger swatches.

I’m not too worried about getting the sheen to show up more, though, since the only other black ink bottle I have is a black with sheen from Inkvent Black (uuuh, Good Tidings I think it was called?).  I’m guessing that Black Hole dries quicker, though I didn’t actually test that.  I did, however, have some fun painting with it in the margins of my journal.

Some margin patterns in my notebook using Colorverse Black Hole ink on a paintbrush. One side has curly vine-like shapes, the other a geometric zig-zag with partial triangles.

Fun bottle and a nice practical ink.  Overall a very nice present!  And I think this is the last ink bottle or sample I had that I hadn’t swatched in my collection, so I’m all caught up and there’s no ink purchases on my horizon until the weather warms up, and maybe not even then — I’ve got so much to play with now!

Swatching these Parker inks that @silhelm sent was tricky! They were in mini cartridges, so I had to pierce the cart, transfer the ink to an inkwell, and then use dip pens on the small amount of ink, which took lots of dips. It mostly worked, but I didn't dare swab them because that would have soaked up half the ink.

Pink is rather fluorescent as suspected, and Purple is a little, too. They had a surprising amount of sheen in the large swatches.

#FountainPens #FountainPenInk #SwatchWednesday

#SwatchWednesday
Pelikan Edelstein Rose Quartz

I quite like this color, it does really look like the gem it's trying to emulate. Very dusty pink with nice shading. I used this in this M600 IB for a few weeks and it was really effective as a heading ink. Probably not so much as a writing ink.

#FountainPens #FountainPenInk

I like this color a lot. It doesn't have a lot of variation in the line but it is a nice solid color. From Noodler's, it is called Liberty's Elysium.

Quote from The Black Wolf by Louise Penny

"I know how power works, *merci*." ... "And I know what happens to trumped-up little people who abuse what power they have. How the need for more and more hollows them out, eats away at them. Until they appear human but have lost all humanity."

#SwatchWednesday #Quote #books #power #fountainpens

Slightly late #SwatchWednesday
Pelikan Edelstein Topaz

Got this at Pelikan Hub and proceeded to swatch it right there. I'm not so attracted to this sky blue color range (I don't really use kon-peki or ama-iro either) but the shading is nice and it's certainly a cheery ink. I've used a pretty wet nib here (a 14K OBB) so that bears out in the shading.

#FountainPens #FountainPenInk

A nice dark grey from The Birmingham Pen Co.
The name of the ink is Megalodon.
I really like it. I am experimenting with a fine nib which I do not love. I look forward to trying this in a bigger nib size!

Contemplating this book still. I’m not ready to do this the way he suggests yet but I will be.

The quote is from Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

"The underlying behaviors we hope to fix are ingrained in our culture, and, as I argued in the previous chapter, they’re backed by powerful psychological forces that empower our base instincts. To reestablish control, we need to move beyond tweaks and instead rebuild our relationship with technology from scratch, using our deeply held values as a foundation."

#swatchWednesday #quote #tech #books #reading #fountainpens