14 Inks To Match Your Blue-Green LAMY AL-Star Fountain Pen

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Cheryl

LAMY Al-Star Blue-Green & Matching Fountain Pen Inks

Looking for a blue-green shade of fountain pen ink to match your brand new Blue-Green LAMY AL-Star? We’ve got 14 suggestions for you! These colors range from bright to muted and from light to dark. Some shades of ink are more blue and other shades are more green. We chose a variety of inks to accommodate the variety of tastes fountain pen users might have. Of course, a photo on the internet isn’t going to give you an exact representation of the actual color. It’s helpful to look at the colors side by side to give you an idea of how they compare. Our list shown in the photo includes:

Left column, top to bottom:

J. Herbin Vert Reseda
LAMY Green (also available in cartridges)
Pilot Iroshizuku Forest Green
Pelikan Edelstein Aventurine
Pelikan Edelstein Jade
Noodler’s Bad Green Gator
Noodler’s Eel Polar Green

Right column, top to bottom:

If you’re not the matchy-matchy type and want a contrasting color of ink that looks great with the Blue-Green LAMY AL-Star our first choice would be blue-black or navy blue, especially Noodler’s Air-Corp Blue-Black fountain pen ink. Black, gray and even dark brown inks are a good match too. What color of fountain pen ink do you like to use with your Blue-Green AL-Star?

Top 10 Fountain Pen Inks

Posted on December 4, 2013 by Cheryl

There is a fountain pen ink for every color of the rainbow and each of them has its own special characteristics. Fountain pen ink comes in cartridges or bottles that encompass designs from utilitarian to a piece of art that begs to be displayed. A writer could spend a lifetime experimenting and writing with the plethora of inks currently available. So how did these fountain pen inks make our top ten list? Some of them are best sellers, some are staff favorites and others have their own qualities that make them special. We have chosen to list the inks by price, from most expensive to least expensive (this is not to say that whatever is the most expensive is the best). Certainly, our top ten list will be different than yours, so please share with us your favorite inks!

Pilot Iroshizuku Bottled Fountain Pen Inks

1. Pilot Iroshizuku Fountain Pen Ink – Most Beautiful Bottle

Pilot Iroshizuku ink comes in a glamorous modern and sophisticated oval-shaped bottle. This heavy glass bottle even has an indentation on the bottom of the interior to help you use the ink down to the last few drops. Add to this the wide range of colors that express the beauty of nature in Japan and you’ve got a stylish winner! On our list, the runner up in this category would definitely be Pelikan’s Edelstein ink.

Platinum Carbon Black Fountain Pen Ink

2. Platinum Carbon Black Ink

Platinum Carbon Black ink is a favorite of artists that create art with a fountain pen. It is pigment based rather then dye based which makes it very water-resistant, fade-resistant and heat-resistant after it dries. It is often used for drawing along with a watercolor wash.

Pelikan M205 Duo Yellow Highlighter Ink

3. Pelikan M205 Duo Yellow Highlighting Ink

If you’re tired of tossing away dried-up plastic highlighter pen carcasses you can refill them instead using Pelikan M205 Duo fluorescent highlighter ink. You can also use this ink with the classic Pelikan M205 Highlighter Fountain Pen or create your own long-lasting refillable highlighter using a fountain pen + highlighter pen! Check out the D.I.Y. instructions:
Pen Mods: How to make a long-lasting refillable highlighter pen
D.I.Y. Highlighter Recharging

OMAS Sepia Bottled Fountain Pen Ink

4. Omas Sepia Fountain Pen Ink

Omas Sepia fountain pen ink has a modern formula but a vintage, old timey-wimey appearance and it looks fabulous on cream colored paper! The interesting bottle design allows you to tip the bottle on its side while filling your pen with ink which helps a lot when the bottle’s ink level is starting to run low.

Aurora Black Fountain Pen Ink

5. Aurora Black Fountain Pen Ink

Aurora Black ink is our top choice for a friendly, easy to use ink that is a deep, dark, intense black color. It comes in both Ink cartridges suitable for Aurora fountain pens or in bottles so that you can use it with just about any fountain pen.

Noodler’s Bulletproof Black Fountain Pen Ink

6. Noodler’s Bulletproof Black Ink

Noodler’s Bulletproof Black ink is a great daily workhorse that is suitable for a wide variety of situations. It has “bulletproof” qualities which means its resists the effects of water, bleach and light. This made in the USA bottled ink is more economical and environmentally friendly than ink in cartridges which many writers appreciate.

Noodler’s Aircorp Blue-Black Fountain Pen Ink

7. Noodler’s Aircorp Blue-Black

Noodler’s Aircorp Blue-Black is Alex’s favorite ink to use daily in any sort of pen including rollerball pens that use fountain pen ink and even in pens where the ink flow tends to be a bit on the dry side. Instead of being a regular black or standard blue color it is an interesting shade of blue-black.

J. Herbin Bottled Fountain Pen Ink

8. J. Herbin is the Lefty’s Favorite Ink

Being a left-handed fountain pen writer presents its own set of challenges. Ink must dry quickly or be smeared all over the page! I’ve successfully used a wide variety of ink without smearing by pairing it with the right paper and a fine or medium nib. I must say though that J. Herbin La Perle des Encres is the ink I always go back to. Love the variety of colors, I can use most of them without smearing and the bottle has a nifty pen-rest.

J. Herbin Vert Reseda Bottled Fountain Pen Ink

9. J. Herbin Vert Reseda

J. Herbin Vert Reseda turquoise ink is Alan’s all-time favorite ink color! He loves this color of French green.

LAMY T52 Black Bottled Fountain Pen Ink

10. LAMY Black Fountain Pen Ink

LAMY T52 Black fountain pen ink is a best seller for many reasons: it is easy to use in any pen, it is low maintenance and good for beginners, the price is economical and black is the the most commonly used color of fountain pen ink. It comes in a cool bottle that includes a handy small roll of blotter tape and it is also available in cartridges for LAMY fountain pens.

We’ve shared our list – now tell us what your top 10 fountain pen inks are!

Pelikan Edelstein Fountain Pen Ink

From This Day Forward: Wedding Guest Book

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Cheryl

From This Day Forward: Wedding Guest Book is part of Compendium’s Live Inspired collection which is meant to inspire, motivate and celebrate the world we love and live in. The inspirational quotations contained in this wedding guest book are sure be part of what will make this book a cherished memory of a couple’s special day.

Instead of just being a registry book for wedding guest names and addresses, the layout of the From This Day Forward wedding guest book is meant to inspire guests to share meaningful advice on how to have a happy life together. As friends and family write on the lined white pages in this book they will read an inspirational quotation on the facing page. The inspirational pages are a understated light-taupe color and are adorned with elegant white botanical and floral designs.

Some of my favorite quotes from this book are “It’s not where you go or what you do in life, it’s who you have beside you” – unknown, and “I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

From This Day Forward is hard bound and is covered in a neutral light-taupe cloth with white and dark brown foil stamping. There is a matching ribbon book marker to assist in finding the right page. There are 80 pages – half are lined for guests to write on and the other half have quotations. Each wide-ruled page has 14 lines.

My favorite fountain pen to match this guest book would have to be the taupe colored Pelikan Classic M205.

My first choice for ink would be a dark taupe brown color of ink such as J. Herbin’s Cacao du Bresil.

If you would rather use a gel pen, then I would recommend the classy silver tone Pentel EnerGel Alloy RT Gel Pen that comes with a black ink cartridge. Your left-handed guests will not smear the EnerGel ink!

Are you planning on getting married this year? Congratulations and best wishes from all of us here at Writer’s Bloc!

Trending Taupe

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Cheryl

Taupe is a neutral color that is frequently used in the world of fashion, interior design, graphic design and elsewhere. According to Wikipedia the word “taupe” comes from the Latin name for the European mole and was originally used to describe the average color of the actual animal. Today, the word taupe is used to refer to varying shades ranging from grayish-brown, tan, rose taupe and more. It is also the most popular color for leather sofas! The color taupe also appears in the world of notebooks, ink and fountain pens.

In 2012 Pelikan created a special edition M205 fountain pen in the color taupe that will only be available for a limited period of time. This sophisticated color subtly stands out of the crowd of traditional black fountain pens. It’s definitely on my want list!

For a matching ink color, I would fill my Pelikan M205 fountain pen with J. Herbin’s Cacao du Bresil fountain pen ink which I would call a dark brown taupe color. For a contrasting ink color, I would choose Tanzanite from Pelikan’s Edelstein Ink collection. This blue-black ink would be a nice complement to the classy taupe body of the fountain pen.

Leuchtturm 1917 created one of their thoughtfully designed lined journals with numbered pages with a taupe cover. The soft ivory color of the paper in this journal really makes a brown shade of ink pop on the page.

Even hipsters like the color taupe as evidenced in this funky retro design “Doing Good and Feeling Good” Write Now journal from Live Inspired.

If you prefer a journal with bright white paper, there are a limited number of taupe Quo Vadis Habana Journals available while they last. The Clairefontaine paper in the Habana journal works great with fountain pens.

To top it all off, I would paint my nails with Opi “Over the Taupe” nail polish. Yeah, that’s right, even my fingers would match my fountain pen, ink and journal.

Even my cat Rori has a taupe chin and taupe spots!

I’m afraid that once I buy the Pelikan M205 in taupe I will also need to get a matching Fiat 500 in my favorite color they call “punk grey”. Think of how good I will look driving this car!

Do you have any favorite products or designs in the classic color of Taupe?

Violette Pensée Ink Mixing Part 2

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Cheryl

My first attempt at purple ink mixing was a recipe of 5 parts J. Herbin Violette Pensée and 1 part another ink. The results were pretty much all different shades of purple, so I wondered what results I would get increasing the amount of other ink. This new experiment is a recipe of equal parts J. Herbin Violette Pensée and another color of ink. Results were more varied this time.

I wasn’t surprised to see that equal parts Violette Pensée and J. Herbin Perle Noir (black) made black with purple undertones.

Violette Pensée and J. Herbin Rose Cyclamen (magenta) together made a purple that is brighter, lighter, warmer and pinker than Violette Pensée on its own. This scan makes it look a lot bluer than it actually is. I used to have a shirt exactly this color in high school.

A rather pleasing royal blue color results from the combination of J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche (cyan) and Violette Pensée.

Kind of a murky golden brown is produced by Violette Pensée and J. Herbin Bouton D’Or (yellow).

Violette Pensée and J. Herbin Lierre Sauvage (green) together make an interesting gray-green shade. The scan mostly fails to show the green tint to this mix.

J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink (red) with Violette Pensée makes a dark red-brown or red-black color.

A dark maroon-brown results from Violette Pensée and Edelstein Mandarin (orange) ink.

If I was going to choose one of these to mix and fill my pen with it would have to be the Lierre Sauvage combination because of its unusual shade. I like it even though it’s darker and more conservative than the colors of ink I often use. I think I would also enjoy the red-black color of the 1670 Anniversary ink mixed with the purple or the maroon produced by the Edelstein Mandarin.

What is your favorite ink mixing recipe?

Using J. Herbin Fountain Pen Ink as Highlighter Ink

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Cheryl

Have you ever thought of using regular, non-fluorescent fountain pen ink as highlighter ink? More than once I’ve heard people wonder why ink companies bother creating fountain pen inks in light colors because when used for writing they can sometimes be hard to read. Besides being good for fans of bright colors, for artwork and for ink mixing, these colors are often valuable for use as highlighting inks!

I started out using J. Herbin Bouton d’Or regular yellow fountain pen ink for highlighters since it seemed the most obvious choice from my ink arsenal. I had such good results that I added Noodler’s Yellow to my calligraphy highlighter pens with similar good results. Recently I’ve been using J. Herbin’s Bleu Azur fountain pen ink in my Pelikan Script 2.0mm calligraphy pen and find that it’s the perfect shade of blue for highlighting.

We selected what we felt are the six lightest regular J. Herbin fountain pen ink colors and made some samples for you to take a look at. J. Herbin Bouton d’Or, Bleu Azur and Rose Tendresse are pretty typical “highlighter” colors (minus any fluorescence). Compared to your usual highlighter green, Vert Pré has more of a yellow tone to it and is a fresh, spring green. Diabolo Menthe is a pretty, light turquoise green that’s a fun alternative to regular highlighter blue. Bouquet d’Antan is to pink what denim blue is to blue, it’s kind of a faded, worn pink color that’s more subtle and easy on the eyes than blazingly fluorescent highlighter pinks. (We wish the combination of scanners and computer monitors would depict colors more accurately.)

These are our choices among J. Herbin’s wide variety of inks for use as highlighter colors. What do you think of these ink colors for highlighting? What are your favorite highlighting ink colors?

(This sample was made using a laser printer, cheap copier paper, a LAMY pen with a 1.9mm calligraphy nib, and a Pelikan Script with a 2.0mm nib. The ink descriptions come from the J. Herbin website. Sorry, I cannot seem to draw a straight line even if my life depended on it!)

Ink Mixing With J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary Ink

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Cheryl

J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary Ink is a limited edition red ink created to honor the 340th anniversary of the J. Herbin ink brand. Since it is only available for a short time, I thought I’d better start my experiments with this ink right away!

For this ink mixing experiment I used 5 parts of some common J. Herbin ink colors with only 1 part J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary Ink. Here are some the the results:

Bleu Pervenche plus 1670 Anniversary ink creates a dark purple-grey color. It looks rather like a purple-black when writing with it.

Rose Cyclamen with 1670 Anniversary ink makes a color that I would call “fruit punch”. It makes me want to reach for a tall glass filled with ice and something delicious!

Bouton D’or and 1670 Anniversary ink created an amazing scarlet or vermilion color that I really love. It is a bright orange-red color even when you are writing with it.

Perle Noire with a touch of 1670 Anniversary ink makes a conservative espresso brown, or a black-brown color.

The next mix that I did is a little more complicated. I used green ink mixed from 5 parts Bouton D’or and 1 part Bleu Pervenche. This green turns out to be quite similar to J. Herbin’s Vert Pré. When you use 5 parts of this green and one part 1670 Anniversary you get a rich milk chocolate color with some very nice shading!

Finally, Violette Pensée and 1670 Anniversary ink makes a plum color that really reminds me of Cabernet Sauvignon wine. If you are a fan of red wine I think you’re really going to love this ink color! Hmmm…. I seem to be sensing a food theme for the ink color descriptions today. I think it’s almost dinner time as I write this post.

My favorites of this experiment are the scarlet, milk chocolate and wine colors. How about you? Do you think you might try mixing any of these or other colors yourself while the 1670 Anniversary ink is still available?

Shades of Red – Ink Mixing With J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary Ink

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Cheryl

I’m really not quite sure what I expected with this ink mixing experiment, but then that’s what experiments are for, aren’t they? The 1670 Anniversary red ink is one of J. Herbin’s most saturated ink colors, so adding just a touch of another ink color made almost no difference in some mixes, but other mixes offered a more dramatic change. I’m not sure how much you’ll notice in this scan, but anyway here it goes. I used 5 parts 1670 Anniversary red ink and one part of another color of J. Herbin ink.

1670 Anniversary ink mixed with Bleu Pervenche made a red-black looking ink with a purplish undertone.

I didn’t notice much of a change to the 1670 Anniversary color when I added Rose Cyclamen to it, however, I can see a tinge of magenta when there is shading.

Bouton D’or also did not change the color of the 1670 Anniversary ink much. If anything, it may have warmed up the color an eensy bit.

1670 Anniversary plus Perle Noire creates a conservative black-red color with noticeable red in the shading.

1670 Anniversary with bright green (created from 5 parts Bouton’Dor and 1 part Bleu Pervenche – similar to Vert Pré) makes dark red.

Adding Violette Pensée to 1670 Anniversary ink also creates dark red, but this dark red is more of a maroon color. This was my favorite new color from the experiment.

What are your favorite red fountain pen ink colors?

J. Herbin Gris Nuage Ink Mixing Test

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Cheryl

I had some fun the other night experimenting with mixing J. Herbin Gris Nuage grey ink with other colors of J. Herbin fountain pen inks. For this test I used the ratio of five parts Gris Nuage and one part the other color of ink. I used a Clairefontaine Basics notebook for the paper, which held up quite well despite being heavily doused with ink.

Gris Nuage plus 1670 Anniversary Rouge Hematite ink turned out to be a toned-down version of red, not as bright as the 1670 ink on its own. Not a dramatic change, but who would want to change this great red color anyway?

When Bleu Pervenche was added to Gris Nuage the result was a turquoise-grey color. Nice shading in this combination.

The big surprise was Bouton D’or turned Gris Nuage into a great army green color with lots of shading. This was my favorite result and I filled up my Pelikano Junior with this color immediately!

Gris Nuage plus Violette Pensee resulted in a dark purple-grey color as expected.

My second favorite result was the Gris Nuage and Rose Cyclamen combination. This turned out to be a satisfying purple color with pink undertones.

Anyone else have a favorite ink mixing combination using J. Herbin Gris Nuage ink?

J. Herbin Violette Pensee Ink

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Cheryl

At the risk of revealing my age, J. Herbin Violette Pensee fountain pen ink brings back pleasant memories of elementary school. I can still remember as a wee child getting assignments & homework in the form of handouts printed on an old hand-cranked mimeograph machine. It was best to get these handouts straight off the press since they would still be warm and had the fabulous smell of freshly mimeographed sheets. It’s hard to describe this pleasant smell, but I still remember it very clearly. Can anyone else remember this smell? (It has probably left me slightly brain damaged, but that’s a topic for some other day 😉 Another thing I liked about mimeographed assignments was the most common color used for the printing – a nice purple color. I found a sample of what this purple color looked like in the article Remembering the Ditto and Mimeograph by Harmon Jolley. It is difficult to accurately display purple colors in digital photos and on computer monitors, but in real life J. Herbin Violette Pensee ink is very similar in color to purple mimeograph “ink”.

I find Violette Pensee to be a very practical, yet very fun ink. It’s conservative enough (in my opinion) to be used everyday in a professional office environment, it’s blue-toned enough that even my husband doesn’t mind it, and it is dark enough to be used in fine nibbed fountain pens. It looks great on both white and ivory colored paper. The color brings back fond memories for me and it is unmistakably purple, not black, not blue, but purple which is a very creative color.

Like other J. Herbin ink I’ve used, this is a well-behaved ink that performs well on pretty much any decent paper, without feathering or bleed-through. It’s not waterproof. It has a decent drying time which is important for a lefty like me. Violette Pensee is available in both universal fountain pen ink cartridges and bottles. What’s your favorite purple fountain pen ink?

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