Buying Ink

"Iroshizuku Chiku-rin and Ama-iro" Cedar Park, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/80 sec, ISO3200
“Iroshizuku Chiku-rin and Ama-iro” Cedar Park, 2018

こんばんは。Today’s photo is of my two Iroshizuku inks that I am using. The one on the left, Chiku-rin, just arrived today and I love using it! It’s a nice complement to my favorite ink, Ama-iro. As you can see, the Iroshizuku 50ml bottles are beautiful and so cool! They are quite pricey, however, at around $18-$28. If you don’t want to spend so much, you can find 15ml bottles, but those are about $10, so the 50ml is a better value. On the other hand, it will take a while to use up all that ink unless you write a lot or use larger-nib fountain pens.

When I first started getting into fountain pens and inks, a friend of mine told me about buying ink samples from Goulet Pen Company. It’s a smart way to try out a wide variety of inks for not a lot of money. This is how I decided that I really liked Ama-iro and Chiku-rin. Plus it’s fun to experiment with colors that you’d probably never buy otherwise.

Of course, if you have a lot of different kinds of ink, you might want to get a bunch of fountain pens! I’ve lately purchased a bunch of Jinhao pens on Ebay. I don’t know how these companies can make money because the pens only cost ~$1-$4 with free shipping. The quality of the Jinhaos I have received is pretty good (I think I’ve gotten lucky), but for that price, if I ever get a dud, then it won’t be the end of the world.

I’m really having fun with my fountain pens and notebooks. I highly recommend getting into it. And, if you live nearby, I’d love to swap inks sometime!

またね~

New Ink

"Ama-iro" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/50 sec, ISO800
“Ama-iro” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Today I received a beautiful bottle of beautiful ink. I have tried a few different sample inks, and I found myself going back to the Iroshizuku Ama-iro sky blue in a few pens. Consequently, I ran out of it quickly. So, I knew I wanted to get a bottle of the ink, but the question was if I should get the smaller 15ml or larger 50ml size.

It was a pretty easy decision to go with the 50ml bottle for a couple of reasons. First, I like to use medium and broad nib pens, and they put down a lot of ink. Secondly, the price difference was not that big. And lastly, the Isoshizuku 50ml bottles are beautiful!

So now I have Ama-iro loaded in 3 of two of my pens, and I am set for a while. 🙂

I realized that I didn’t take a recent photo of the actual ink, but here’s a google search that shows how pretty it is.

I hope you had a nice day!

またね~