Tag: rohrer and klingner

Currently Inked Pens March 2025

Of February’s pen lineup only two pens remain inked, the Parker 51 with Waterman Purple, and the Leonardo Momento Zero Bohemian Twilight with Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo. As they’re both running low on ink, it’s time for a new pen lineup, with a slightly different theme than last month’s one:

  • All the pens are modern (last time I had more vintage pens than modern ones in rotation) and ones that I haven’t inked in years.
  • All the inks are ones that I haven’t used in years or ever, apart from one that was in the last rotation but I still haven’t figured out so it got another go.
  • The ink colours are much brighter than those that I used in February.

Here’s March’s rotation:

Writing sample on Midori MD Cotton paper

Here’s a bit more about every pen and ink combo:

  • Franklin Christoph 03 modified prototype- Red/White/Black motion with a 1.1 HPSteel cursive calligraphy nib. This is a new pen that I bought last year as my chemo anniversary pen (I buy myself a present every year to mark the occasion). I love the unusual resin colour and pattern, and I like FC’s HPSteel 1.1 nibs. They are just wide enough to really show off the ink without becoming a nightmare to use because it takes ages for the ink to dry.
    As nice as the pen is (and it is), the ink is the star in this one in terms of interest: it’s the ORIGINAL J.Herbin 1670 Rouge Hematite, which means that it has NO GLITTER and NO SHEEN. It’s just a deep, bright red with some nice shading and good outlining, but it isn’t full of gold glitter and sheen to the point where you can’t see the base colour. Yes, this is also the bottle that had the problematic crumbly wax cover on the cap, but I really think that I prefer this version to the one they issued later (I have both). I don’t normally use red inks, but this one was perfect for this pen.
The FC 03
The HPSteel 1.1 nib
Original Rouge Hematite compared to Cosmic Glow on original Tomoe River paper. Note the lack of sheen or shimmer.
  • TWSBI ECO Saffron fine nib filled with Rohrer & Klingner Helianthus ink. I use yellow inks even less often that I use red inks, but this ink is fairly readable for a yellow ink. It is, however, not going anywhere near a vintage pen as it has a tendency to crust over (as many yellow inks do). I wanted something bright, cheerful and different, and this ink checked all three. The TWSBI ECO is a phenomenal pen for those starting out with bottled fountain pen ink, and I can’t recommend it enough.
TWSBI ECO Saffron
  • Aurora Ipsilon medium nib with Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldrün ink. This is my one and only Aurora pen, which I bought years ago in Florence, Italy. Aurora nibs are nice enough, but the pens are priced well above what I believe that they are worth, so I have steered clear of them over the years. The Ipsilon is small pen, but you can’t post it, which is annoying for such a small pen. R&K Alt-Goldrün is a fantastic ink colour – a non standard green with plenty of shading and character – and the only reason I haven’t used it more is because it was tucked away behind two rows of other ink bottles. If you are just starting out with green inks, give Alt-Goldrün a try.
Aurora Ipsilon
The Ipsilon nib looks ridiculously small but it’s just the design of the section that makes it appear that way. Comparison photo to a TWSBI ECO nib.
  • Leonardo Momento Zero Blue Hawaii Fine nib with Diamine Steel Blue ink. I have used this pen fairly recently compared to some of the others in this rotation, but the ink has been one that I actually forgot that I have. I love teal and turquoise inks, and Diamine Steel is a beautiful member of this group. There’s a hint of shading with it, and it just pops off the page so nicely. If you want a different take on “boring blue” inks, I highly recommend it.
Leonardo Momento Zero Hawaii
  • Montblanc Writer’s Edition Victor Hugo medium nib with Montblanc Around the World in 80 Days ink. I bought this pen in Mora Stylos in Paris before they closed mainly because I adore the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral and it’s featured on this pen. Hugo has the honour of being the saviour of this extraordinary cathedral, and though I shy away from Montblanc limited editions (talk about overpriced) I thought this one was worth purchasing. The ink was last in rotation, in a vintage Montblanc, last month. I just can’t get over how unrelated it is to the green-gold elephant on the box, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I was expecting it to be more like Alt-Goldrün than like the bluish-grey (Payne’s Grey really) that it is.
The Montblanc Writer’s Edition Victor Hugo
The Victor Hugo death mask on the cap
The nib, which features Victor Hugo
  • Finally, speaking of a pen and ink combo that have gotten “lost” in my collection: the Stipula Model T marbled grey pen was also an Italian purchase, and it has a very peculiar fine “flexy” titanium nib. I would characterize the nib as springy, and as my other titanium nib Stipula does, it squeaks sometimes as you write with it. The ink is one that I bought in 2013 in Fahrney’s pen store in Washington DC. Since then I haven’t opened it and used it, mainly because Fahrney’s Tempest Blue is a blue ink, and I don’t use blue inks often. It shades nicely, but other than that it looks close enough to my benchmark blue, Waterman Florida Blue (now renamed to Waterman Serenity Blue), for me not to bother using it often. Waterman Serenity Blue is a best-in-class blue in my opinion because it’s so well behaved, gentle and easy to clean out of pens that you can safely use it in any pen that you have, particularly vintage ones.
The Stipula Model T. A very sleek design.
The Model T titanium nib.

Sketching with Iron Gall Fountain Pen Ink: Rohrer and Kilngner Ebony

I have recently purchased the Rohrer and Klingner limited edition Ebony iron gall ink, and I’ve filled one of my Lamy Safaris with it. While iron gall fountain pen ink can be corrosive to pens, and it does change colour over time, it does have a pretty nifty trait: it’s waterproof when dry.

So I made this quick sketch with my Lamy Safari extra fine nibbed fountain pen on a Cass Art recycled paper sketchbook:

And then I added some watercolour to the sketches (note that although this isn’t watercolour paper, the paper in this sketchbook does take light watercolour washes):

As expected, it worked pretty well. Note two things about the combination of iron gall ink and watercolour:

1. The ink must be dry before applying the watercolour.

2. As the water causes the paper fibers to expand, your ink lines may “spread” or display soft edges if you apply watercolour over them. You can see this in both sketches. Different paper will lead to different results, of course.

This was a fun little experiment, and a great way to test out this ink a bit more.

Full sketching kit.

Have you ever used iron gall ink with watercolour in your sketches?

May 2024 Currently Inked Pens

April was a travel month which meant that I cleaned out all of my fountain pens apart from the Big Idea Design Fountain EDC that I took with me on my travels. So in the beginning of May I inked up five more fountain pens, many of them with new inks that I bought during my trip.

The Big Idea Design Fountain EDC is still a troublesome writer, but I keep reaching for it, so it’s still in the rotation with its second cartridge of Diamine Autumn Oak. Diamine Autumn Oak is a reddish orange with a lot of shading and it’s dark enough to be readable even with a fine nibbed pen.

There are two Franklin Christophs currently in my rotation (I misspelled the brand name in the writing sample, my apologies), and I am using them to compare the Sailor Studio 123 ink to the 224 ink. 224 is slightly more bluish and has less of a pink tint to it, but both are so similar that if you’re looking for 123 and it’s out of stock, you could use 224 and likely not notice the difference. I’ve been using these pens so much that I wrote the Sparkling Rock dry already, and the Thomas Hall Tibaldi edition is well on its way to joining it.

The Momento Zero Mother of Pearl is a gorgeous pen with a gorgeous, springy nib, and a joy to write with. Sailor studio 162, which I purchased on a whim at Choosing Keeping in London, is now one of my favourite inks. It’s a very unique shade of green/teal that makes me want to fill the same pen with it the minute I write it dry.

The Lamy Safari Savannah has Pilot Iroshizuku Kosumosu ink in it because I wanted something bright after all the muted greys and greens. The issue is that previously the pen had a shimmer ink in it and I apparently didn’t clean out all the particles, so I now have a shimmer version of Kosumosu. The result is fetching so I don’t mind this accident, but I will have to properly dismantle the pen and give it a thorough cleaning once I write it dry. It’s about halfway full now.

I like Rohrer and Klingner inks so when I saw the limited edition Ebony iron gall ink at Choosing Keeping, I immediately bought it. It’s very well behaved for an iron gall ink, but it’s not really a saturated black. I prefer darker blacks, but I’m getting used to the shading that Ebony provides.

A slightly late addition to the flock is the Leondardo Momento Zero Grande 2.0 Galattica Universe fountain pen, which arrived just in time for my birthday. It’s a stunning pen, and this photo does not do it justice. I knew I wanted a turquoise ink in it, and I haven’t used Bungo Box’s June Bride Something Blue in a while, so that’s the ink I chose. It was difficult to fill the pen from the flat Sailor shaped bottle, and I didn’t get a full piston-full of ink in it because of the awkward shape of the bottle. Lesson learned for next time.

What pens and inks did you use in May?

OneWeek100People 2021: Day 5

Day five of the One Week 100 People challenge, the final day of the challenge. I made it, using only pen and ink, and focusing on portraits the whole way through! It was tough but rewarding, and if I’d change one thing about it is get a better ink than Platinum Carbon. It kept drying up on me, and for the last four drawings I switched to a Lamy Safari fine with Noodler’s Black. That also wasn’t ideal, but it was better than the Platinum. I really want to test out the De Atramentis Document inks, but with shipping rates and reliability being what they are I’m stuck with three equally poor alternatives: Noodler’s Black, Platinum Carbon Ink and Rohrer and Klingner SketchINK. They all dry up in the nib and are hard starters, and the best of the bunch in terms of flow (Noodler’s) is the least waterproof of them all.

Anyway, I really recommend the One Week 100 People Challenge to anyone who wants to improve their people drawing skills, and I plan on doing it again next year.

comfort pasta

Comfort Pasta Sketchbook Page

I think that there’s nothing better than plain pasta or pasta with a little cheese if you’re not feeling your best: it’s perhaps the ultimate comfort food.
I created this page as part of my Sketchbook Design course with Liz Steel, and this one is all about exploring how to use text as part of my page design. Gave Rohrer & Kilngner Helianthus ink a spin, which is also something that I decided to experiment with. Like many yellow/orange inks it tends to crystallize on the nib and feed, so I’m “sacrificing” a Pelikan Pelikano for the effort. Pelikanos are great beginners pens that don’t get much love in the community probably because they are less ubiqutous than Lamy Safaris and their standard nib offering is a Pelikan medium which is very wide. If you’re an artist I recommend purchasing one (with a converter), as they have less tendency to dry out (with permanent inks) than Lamy Safaris and they indestructible workhorses that have very smooth (and wide) nibs.

Drawing made with Schmincke watercolours on a Stillman & Birn Beta which I’m still on the fence about. It’s better than the Alpha for watercolour washes, but it’s still not great, and it’s not great for pen and ink or fineliners. Also the glue connecting the sections isn’t the best, as it needs forcing apart once you hit a new section, and oftentimes leaves an unseemly tear in the middle. The sketchbooks are good, I just wish that the sections were sewn together and that the paper would lean into being watercolour paper more – so that they would be perfect. However, changes like these would mean a price increase, which would make them unappealing, since a large part of the Stillman & Birn softcover sketchbook appeal is their price. In the end it’s a nice sketchbook that I don’t feel too precious about, which is the main point, and is why I’ll continue using it.

Vengeful Fortress Part 3: Rohrer and Klingner Lotte SketchINK Mini Review

Welcome back to Vengeful Fortress, a fantasy roleplaying game that I’m drawing in ink and watercolour (no pencil underdrawing, to save time) as I’m running it for my group of players. We’re now in Part 3, and here are Part 1and Part 2 (which also include a review of the sketchbook I’m using, the Stillman and Birn Epsilon).

As you can see, things are starting to heat up. I’m using a TWSBI Diamond 540 fountain pen with a fine nib, filled with Rohrer and Klingner SketchINK Lotte. SketchINK Lotte is a black pigmented and waterproof fountain pen ink. It’s not a saturated ink, and you can see the grey shading quite clearly here in the lettering and the line work. R&K SketchINK Lotte is also a hard starter, so while it does flow well enough when you get it primed up with a few preliminary scribbles, if you put the pen down for even a few minutes, you’re going to have to prime it again. It is, however, waterproof and relatively fast drying, which makes it worth my time using it. In case you’re wondering if “hard starting” is just an issue with this pen or this nib, I have tried R&K SketchINK Emma and Lotte in a Lamy Safari and a Super5 pen and they are hard starters in all cases. It seems to be a property of the ink, perhaps because it dries to relatively quickly, or because of the particular waterproof formula R&K are using here.

So know that you can trust the Rohrer and Klingner SketchINKs with your watercolours, and know that they’re great for when you’re in a rush and don’t want to wait for the ink to dry, but also have a bit of scrap paper for the first few seconds before you use them .

Vengeful Fortress: A Stillman and Birn Epsilon Sketchbook Review Adventure Part 1

A while ago a local art supply shop started stocking a wider variety of Stillman and Birn sketchbooks. I currently use the Stillman and Birn pocket Alpha as my daily sketchbook, but I decided to give the pocket Epsilon a try. The Epsilon features smooth, white 150 gsm pages which should work for pen, ink, dry media and light washes.

This sketchbook is in landscape format, which is what I normally prefer. I was planning to use it once I’ve finished with my current Alpha, but weeks stretched to months and meanwhile this sketchbook has been languishing away, unused.

So when I saw Liz Steel going on a virtual sketch tour in Italy, I was inspired to grab this notebook and fill it with a sketch tour of my own. I initially planned to sketch out my cancelled London trip, and I may yet do that, but something inspired me to take this idea to a completely new direction.

I’m going to sketch out a freeform fantasy roleplaying adventure for my regular D&D group, and use that as a way to test out this sketchbook, and to make good use of my fountain pens.

So without further ado: Vengeful Forest, a fantasy freeform adventure.

Sketch and writing done with TWSBI 540 Diamond F nib and Rohrer and Klingner Lotte SketchINK.

Blue lines done with PenBBS 500 Fine and Sailor Sky High ink.

Frying pan Rapunzel dressed in purple is probably copyrighted by Disney, but one of my players thought it would be funny to make my life interesting, so here she is.

I tried to give each character a distinct enough colour scheme so you’ll be able to recognize them from a distance. Each player had one sentence to describe their character.

The watercolours are Schminke and I used a Windsor and Newton Series 7 number 2 brush and a Rosemary and Co 772 brush

I’ll continue posting as the adventure progresses, but so far this has been a lot of fun, and the players seem to be enjoying it too. The Stillman and Birn Epsilon has been an absolute champ: it takes light washes beautifully, with very little buckling, allowing me to use both sides of each page. It also works well with fountain pens, especially fine nibbed ones, which are commonly used for sketching. The white paper makes everything pop, and even though 150 gsm isn’t much when it comes to watercolour, it did allow for some layering and reworking without turning into a messy paper pulp. This is a sketchbook that I’m definitely going to purchase again.

Leuchtturm1917 Sketchbook Review

Leuchtturm1917 entered the busy sketchbook market about a year or two ago, with a lineup of A6, A5 and A4 sketchbooks with white 180 gsm paper.

The covers of the Leuchtturm1917 sketchbooks come in a wide variety of colours, which is a rarity in this market. Usually you find sketchbooks in black, or maybe one or two other colours, but Leuchtturm has decided to offer these in all the colour options available in their regular lineup.

The sketchbook contains 96 pages of acid free 180 gsm paper, and it opens flat. There’s a note in the back packaging that says that the paper is colourfast, and shows a sketch made with a fineliner and markers. More on that later.

There’s a place to write your name and address on the front cover. I recommend writing your name and email address instead. It’s more practical, and more secure.

There is a back pocket. I don’t really think that it’s necessary in a sketchbook, but it’s nice to have.

Leuchtturm offers two unique things with its sketchbook. One is the offer to personalize it with an embossing of your choice. During last year’s Urban Sketchers they personalized the sketchbooks that they gave away as part of the symposium’s package, and the result is very nice.

Now for the heart of the notebook, it’s paper. The pages lie flat with a bit of coaxing, and are thick and substantial. You have to really layer down markers for them to bleed through, and there’s no show through, meaning you can use each page on both sides.

So how does the paper behave? It depends on the medium. This sketchbook excels at dry media (pencils, couloured pencils, conte crayons, etc).

It’s pretty horrible with wet media, including fountain pen ink, watercolour washes, and ink washes. The paper buckles, shows off colour poorly, turns into a grainy mess, and and the ink feathers and spreads. I wouldn’t recommend it even for the lightest washes. All the vibrancy of my schminke watercolours turned into a muddy mess here (the sketch was done with a medium nibbed fountain pen and R&K Emma SketchINK):

Even with fineliners you’re going to have spread. If you like sharp lines, find a different sketchbook.

Again, even from a bit of a distance you can see the spread. That’s just a shame, because if the paper was a little less absorbent then this would be an excellent sketchbook.

This brings me to my frustration with the picture on the back end of the paper band, the one showing a tiny marker and fineliner drawing. This is my experience using markers and fineliners on this notebook:

There’s no option to layer or blend the markers, but that’s OK. This isn’t marker specific paper after all. But even for casual use, or just for use with fineliners/brush pens this paper isn’t great.

So do I recommend this sketchbook? It depends. If the way it looks makes you want to use it, then yes, it’s a notebook for you. I’ve been using this sketchbook for my journal comics mainly to test it out. Will I continue using it? Only because I already have a body of work in it. Otherwise, there are better options out there, ones that aren’t only pencil great, but also work with pen, ink and light watercolour washes (the Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbooks come to mind).