Monteverde – SusieG Studio

Pausing for Station Identification: Most of My Swatch Cards

Today is day 3 of the Diamine inky calendar. I’m pausing my blog as I need to spend some time tackling today’s unique chameleon inky color and find some decent matches from my collection.

Speaking of my swatch collection, I wanted to share with my readers what I look at when I typically see a color I’m interested in. Do I have this particular color in my collection? For example, for the first few weeks of December what swatches come close to the daily colors I see. What is the base color? What are the underlying colors? Is there any sheen and how much? If it’s a shimmering, what color(s) do I see?

I process a lot of color information in my head and as a watercolor artist who enjoys mixing paint colors, I tend to see a range of colors that an average person may not see or recognize at first. Okay, let’s get back to my blog post on swatch cards.

I create and keep swatches of the many bottles of inks I have in my collection. The pictures in this blog post does not include the sample ink vials I also have. Awhile back, I’ve stopped swatching the many vials of ink as they were a waste of time for me and resources. If the color did not appeal to me, why create a swatch card?

Let me introduce to you to my largest swatch collection on a rather large binder ring. Here is my Robert Oster Signature swatch ring.

Yes, I am a big fan of Robert Oster inky colors. I’ve lost count on the number of bottles I have. I’ve probably used half of his colors in one of my many pen & ink wash sketches. My RO shimmering colors are at the front of my ring (upper right) and stop at the white Col-o-ring card. This rather large collection is organized by colors. I enjoy using these inks for writing in my journals and for my pen & ink washes on a variety of art paper.

My next largest binder ring is a collection that contains several of my favorite inky manufacturers. This ring is organized by ink manufacturers and colors. This ring includes Birmingham, Colorverse, Diamine, Jacques Herbin, Platinum, Private Reserve, Rohrer & Klingner, Sailor, Taccia, Van Dieman’s Ink, and Vinta Inks. These are the inks I would use for both writing and sketching in my journals and art papers.

My next largest ring contains a smattering of bottles of inks I have, but may not use the ink on a regular basis. Many bottles/colors end up on this ring which I would use for writing in my journals and not necessary use in my inky sketches. This ring is organized by ink manufacturer and color.

Here’s is my swatch family together.

I do have smaller rings of swatch cards. For example I keep all my Red Inkvent swatch cards on a smaller 1″ binder ring. I keep a small ring for my shimmering inks organized by color. That ring includes shimmering inks from various ink manufacturers. My Anderillium test swatches are still in its own ring.

When I have a few minutes later today I’ll try to remember to capture pictures of the other smaller rings I have and update this blog post.

In the meantime, I need to pull out my swatch cards for today’s chameleon inky color.

Day #22: Oh My! It’s Black Ivy!

Inkvent Day #22: Diamine Black Ivy

At first glance this ink label looks to be black. Upon further inspection, I can see a hint of green. The name matches the ink color.

In my writing sample, the ink is a very dark color with a bright red sheen. My swatch shows a bright green underlying color. Let’s take a look at this from a different angle.

Wow! I see a lot of red sheen!

So much sheen!

I decided to wait two days before doing another writing sample on different paper to see how the ink behaves. Hard to imagine, but more sheen shows up.

Another view of my writing sample on Cosmo Air Light paper

I can see some wonderful colors in this ink!

An amazing bold ink wash with bright red sheen around the edges.

Black Ivy is a dark green ink that shows up initially as a green-black ink color on my paper. As the ink dries the bright red sheen appears along with tiny hints of green. It brings to mind shading qualities where the darker ink becomes the red sheen and the lighter ink becomes the green color. When the ink comes into contact with water, that’s when a bright green color appears. In some areas the underlying ink color appears to lean towards turquoise. Amazing ink characteristics. Black Ivy is on my wish list.

Ink: Diamine Black Ivy (sheen)

Pens: Monteverde Innova Carbon Black Rainbow Trim with Omniflex nib. Automatic pen.

Journal: GLP Creations with TRP (68gsm)

Paper: Cosmo Air Light (2nd writing sample). Grumbacher Mixed Media.

Starting My Pen Rotation and a New Ink

I decided to start the month of October with a pen rotation. Normally, I just wait for the pen to run out of ink and then grab another pen to cycle in. I thought the best way to get started was to collect all of my recent EDWs or Every Day Writers from my pen case and desk and put them in my small plastic bin for my upcoming PCD or pen cleaning day later this week.

I mentioned in my previous post that I had several new ink bottles that were sitting on my desk for the last few weeks. This will give me an opportunity to try out the new ink colors and enjoy the writing experiences.

Before I get into one of my new inks, I wanted to show off a gorgeous nib I received recently with my Monteverde pen. I had my eye on this Innova Carbon Fiber Rainbow pen and to my surprise I was able to select a colorful Omniflex nib to go with this pen. This limited edition pen’s trim is called PVD Rainbow.

I remembered I had my Conklin Duragraph Black Matte with Rainbow trim currently sitting in my pen rotation queue. I think the rainbow Omniflex nib would also look stunning in my Conklin pen.

As you can see from the picture, my Monteverde Innova pen has a lot of pink in the rainbow trim. I decided to do a match with a less predominant color and went with something close to a dark teal color like Devil’s Kitchen.

I did not realize how much I enjoyed this Van Dieman’s Ink color until I started to swatch this ink. This is a beautiful wet ink and the teal color is absolutely stunning. This ink produces an amazing amount of shading along with a bit of pink sheen. I know this ink will be a joy to sketch with as it is gorgeous to write with.

Pen: Monteverde 20th Anniversary LE Innova Carbon Fiber Rainbow with Rainbow Omniflex nib

Ink: Van Dieman’s Ink Devil’s Kitchen

Paper: Rhodia

My Pilot Preras and Calligraphy Medium Nibs

Edit: I forgot to mention that the nibs and feed from my Pilot Metropolitan and Plumix fountain pens are swappable with my Pilot Preras. The nib and feed are friction fit. Pull out the nib/feed from one pen and push into another.

I have a thing for my Pilot Preras. Especially my pens that have the Calligraphy Medium or (CM) nibs. The (CM) nib writes like a medium nib, but with a stub-like feel. Instead of having smooth edges, the edges of the (CM) nib are crisp-like and can produce an italic style of writing with of course crisp edges. Because of the distinct crisp-like edges on the nib, there is a sweet-spot when writing with these nibs. If I turn my nib a bit while writing I can feel the edge of the nib grind a bit into the paper. It’s a reminder that I need to hold the pen with the nib flat against the paper.

My Pilot Preras are the colorful and transparent models. They are beautiful to look at and lovely to write with.

They are small in size, but when posted they are comfortable in my hand. I keep one or two Preras inked and they have a special place on my studio desk for jotting notes and for journaling.

In my pens, I use my empty Pilot ink cartridges instead of the converters. I find it’s easier to fill the cartridges and clean them. They also hold more ink than the included converters.

I recently filled all of my beauties with different brands of inks and used them to sketch with.

Here’s my writing sample showing the different ink brands I’m currently using:

The CM nib really enhances my handwriting and makes it look a bit more elegant.

These are fun pens to write and sketch with. The pens have a lovely snap cap feel that is smooth and solid when I remove and put the caps back onto the pens. When posted, the cap slides securely to the back of the pen.

The clip on the Preras are well made. My pens slide in and out of my pen cases without snagging or getting caught in the openings. I have a few other fountain pens where their clips enjoy holding on to the fabric as I try to pull them out of my pen case.

My Preras are noticeably smaller in size when compared to my favorite fountain pens. I actually don’t mind their compact size as I can easily slip my pen into a travel sized notebook or into a pen slot in my purse or backpack.

Pens: Pilot Prera Transparent colors (light blue, light green, black, pink, & orange) with Calligraphy Medium (CM) nibs.

Inks: Diamine Asa Blue and Amaranth. Monteverde Olivine. Private Reserve Copper Burst. Vinta Inks Damili.

Paper: Rhodia