Sailor – SusieG Studio

Day 3: My Blurples (Blues/Purples)

Today’s Diamine inky color is called Solar Storm. It’s a “chameleon” ink which contains oodles of shimmering particles with lots of sheen.

My friend “T” has provided her lovely inky swatch to include in my blog post for today.

I asked myself several times this morning, what base color do I see? What are the underlying colors I see? What shimmering colors do I see? Finally, what is the sheen color I see? Many questions that took me some time to ponder what inky colors I had in my collection.

Last year, I looked at the Diamine label to see the predominant base color I would expect to see. Then without shaking the bottle, I would look at the bottom of the bottle to see the predominant shimmering color.

Just to let “T” know as well as others who are following along with me, I’ve been relying also on two other swatches from other folks. I take into consideration if the swatch picture was taken under a lamp light or natural daylight. That helps me to cover the gamut of colors I see.

I came up with several blurple inky colors from various ink brands.

Here’s a more angled picture to show some sheen and sparkles.

Here are the swatches I think come closest to Solar Storm or maybe a combination.

Storm has a bit of green sparkles while Silver Dawn has silver shimmers.

From what I can tell, Solar Storm is a dark blue and dark purple ink. It has some major sheen that appears to be red-brown. There also appears to be two shimmering colors of green and gold. This beautiful Solar Storm inky color is truly a chameleon that contains what I call different personalities based on the paper used and of course the lighting.

This Solar Storm ink color is unique and is at the top of my inky wish list for next year. I do not have this specific color and with all its inky personalities it’s a must have. I’m happy I’m participating in this year’s daily inky activities by doing my own comparisons. This gives me a chance to analyze the colors and qualities at a distance without getting too emotional with all the colors like I did last year. This makes it simpler for me to pick and choose the colors for my future wish list.

Ink swatches: Diamine Red Inkvent Storm (shimmer). Robert Oster Silver Dawn (shimmer) and Dragon’s Night. Sailor Shikiori Shigure. Anderillium Inks Purple Gallinule.

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.

Spring is Definitely in the Air with Opus 88

I was able to snag an Opus 88 fountain pen called Love in Bloom. I originally pre-ordered it with a Medium nib and received an email from the retailer that they had a Fine and a Broad nib available and could send it immediately. I shifted gears and went with a Fine nib.

After a few days of delays which included waiting for my pen to be shipped, then delivered to wrong address, and finally received, I was able to fill my new pen with Summer Purple.

My Opus 88 is definitely a mini pen and measures about 4-5/8 inches or 117.3mm in length and weighs around 24grams. It’s a tiny bit shorter than my TWSBI Vac Mini, Pilot Stargazer, and Pilot Prera.

TWSBI Vac Mini, Pilot Stargazer, Opus 88 Mini, Sailor Pro Gear Haruzora, & Pilot Prera

After I checked the nib with a loupe, I had a gut feeling that this pen would have a dry writing experience. I originally filled my pen with Van Dieman’s Ink Parrot Fish (shimmering) and it immediately clogged my pen. That was a bad idea. I emptied the ink into a vial to reuse in another pen. I flushed my new pen with some water and went to Plan B and Summer Purple.

Summer Purple had been on my inky wishlist and I finally had a bottle sent to me a few weeks ago. Yes, it sat on my studio desk and patiently waited for a swatch to be made and the right pen to be filled.

Summer Purple is a gorgeous ink color. It’s a pinky-purple color with a lovely golden sheen. This color reminds me of the bright colored eggplant you would find in Asia and not the dark purple ones here in the US.

This pen and ink combination makes me very happy.

I have a good feeling that this ink will make its way into one of my TWSBI GOs and I’m looking forward to sketching with this gorgeous ink color.

The Opus 88 Mini does not post. Yes, I tried to post my pen and the cap flew off immediately. Some pen-folks may not enjoy writing with this short pen. In my hand, I can feel that it is a short and stubby pen. The tapered section is shorter than my Omar and holds a #5 JoWo nib. Personally, I would have preferred a #6 nib on this small sized pen.

It’s a cute mini pen. It’s a pocket pen. It’s a travel pen. It’s small enough to fit in most pen cases. It’s an eyedropper pen that holds a large amount of ink. It’s a pen that looks absolutely lovely on my desk. I’m sure there will be more mini pen designs in the near future.

Pen: Opus 88 Mini Pocket Pen in Love in Bloom (Endless Pens Exclusive 2022) with Fine nib

Ink: Kaweco Summer Purple

Paper: Rhodia

Shimmering Ink Month and My EDWs

Two weeks ago, I had cleaned all of my Everyday Writer (EDW) fountain pens. It didn’t take long before I started to fill them again with different inks. This time it was mostly with shimmering inks.

The first (left) and last two pens (right) are filled with normal inks. The rest have shimmering inks.

Notice in the picture, I have eight EDW pens inked at one time. This is a personal restriction I have placed upon myself. Not to go overboard and have 30 EDW pens inked at one time. I used to do that when I first started out in this crazy rabbit hole. The thought of cleaning 30 pens was overwhelming. It took me awhile to clean 30 pens and at the same time I kept filling my pens with ink. The 30 pens would drop down to 20 and then back up to 30 again.

Last year I set a goal for myself to create good habits. One of them was to only have 10 EDW pens inked at one time. This of course did not include my pens that I use for my artwork. Change is good, right? So far, it looks like it’s working!

Documenting my EDW for future reference. Check out the shimmers!

For those of you following my RO Rose Gold Antiqua shimmering ink adventures, I have paired that ink with my TWSBI Diamond 580 RGII pen. For the second time, this ink has clogged my pen on Day #2. If you remember, my first pen that I paired with this ink clogged as well on Day #2. That was with the Platinum Procyon with a medium nib.

I’m now beyond Day #2 and my TWSBI and Rose Gold Antiqua ink are playing nicely together.

If you’ve noticed, I am no longer calling my currently inked pens EDCs or Everyday Carry. They are now my Everyday Writer or EDW pens.

Looks like I need to create a writing sample with all my currently inked pens I use strictly for my artwork. I better get to it!

Paper used: Rhodia #16 Paper Pad Blank. GLP Creations Journal with Tomoe River Paper Lined.