With the dozens of different colors we stock in the shop and the 100+ bottles in my personal collection, ink swatching and indexing becomes critical because you quickly forget what colors look like, and the color swatch on a bottle label can be inaccurate. Since I found myself working on new shop swatches this morning, I thought it might be fun to talk about my personal swatching process and some of the tools I use.
I had to add ink swatches of the recently released Colorverse Colorvent “Top 3” inks from last year’s Colorverse Colorvent Calendar, and thought it might be fun to document the different techniques used.
Each ink swatch that I do (for both the shop and personal collection) has two components: (1) a darker “swab” that showcases different tones in the ink as it pools on the paper, and (2) a writing sample. My format hasn’t really changed much since the early days, but my tools have evolved. I currently have three main setups and techniques that I use, depending on my mood and the type of ink that I’m working with.
Colorverse Christmas Star, a glistening gold orange, shown here with a Kakimori brass dip nib.
Primary Setup: Glass Cocktail Stir + Dip Pen (Glass or Metal)
For most inks, I use a glass cocktail stir to create an ink swatch, and then a medium-to-broad nib dip pen for the writing sample. The actual writing sample is the most important for me, since I generally use pens for work or personal journaling and I like to see what the ink will look like on the written page with my everyday fines and mediums. As discussed above, the ink swatch is used more to see the underlying tones, which will come out in wetter nibs like broads and stubs.
Many thanks to Lisa at Olive Octopus, who tipped me off to the glass stir technique! She also recently did a post on her own ink swatching tools and techniques, and comes at things from a different perspective as she sketches a lot and also uses brushes and water to bring out the different ink properties.
I have a couple different dip pens that I love, but my current favorite is this broad glass pen by Glass Studio Aun that I picked up at this year’s San Francisco Pen Show. Up until recently my tool of choice was the Kakimori brass nib - which is still a great option that allows for plenty of line variation - but that was before I had written with a really nice glass pen, and to be honest this broad glass nib makes everything else feel like writing with a nail on a chalkboard.
Colorverse Milky Way Glistening, shown here with my broad Glass Studio Aun Glass Pen.
Alternative Setup No. 1: Folded Nib Pen
If you have an ink that benefits from having a LOT of ink on the page, you can choose to do an ink swatch or writing sample with a folded metal nib. These can be a lot of fun to play with if you enjoy highly stylized writing that will not necessarily result in clean lines. (The “splatter effect” is a feature, not a bug!) I enjoy using folded nib pens when I’m doing a full-on ink review, not just a simple swatch, and I’ll do a full page of writing on multimedia paper and really get a sense of how the ink looks when it’s REALLY wet, especially those inks with heavy shimmer and sheen.
Colorverse “Pulsar Pulse,” a super sheener. You can do an ink swatch card with a folded brass nib, but it’s much harder to write smaller text. That said, folded nibs can really bring out the sheen in super sheening inks simply because they apply a LOT of ink in one stroke.
A folded metal nib in action. You can also really see the color shift that occurs in high-sheening inks like Pulsar Pulse. Here the ink is fresh, but the red/purple really comes out once the ink dries.
Alternative Setup No. 2: Plotter + Drillog
While larger card-sized swatches are often the most practical, especially for comparing colors under washed-out fluorescent lighting in pen shops and pen show hotel ballrooms, I also like to keep a second set of swatches for personal use in one of my Bible-sized Plotter binders. Most of these are what I internally think of as my “micro swatches”: small color swatches followed by a writing sample that are portable enough to carry with me for quick comparisons. For these, I’ve been using my recently acquired Drillog .5mm dip pen. As I mentioned in an earlier post-San Francisco Pen Show Post, the Drillog 2.0 fixes many of the issues with the original Drillog, including issues with consistency of ink flow and smoothness. I’ve found this to be an excellent ink swatching tool and can see myself using it for most of my personal ink samples going forward.
My micro swatches. Eventually this will be a full page of Colorverse.
My micro swatch sheet of Taccia standard inks, done with the Kakimori brass nib. This would have been much easier with the Drillog, as the Kakimori pen can sometimes drip and it can be difficult to write consistent thin lines.
A Note on the Ink Swatching Paper
For my ink swatches, I use two papers. The first is Col-o-ring Paper made by the Well-Appointed Desk, which is sold in a wide array of convenient formats that can also be trimmed down or adjusted to however you would like to store them. The cards shown here are sold as part of a set with card holder pages and a Bible-sized Binder, which is what I use in the shop because without the plastic sleeves the swatches tend to smear from so many different people handling them. For my personal ink swatches, I typically use Midori MD Cotton Paper, since it’s my preferred paper for personal writing and I like to see my ink samples on paper I use on an almost daily basis.
The TGS in-store ink swatch album. Yes, we sell these. They are made by Papier Plume. The ink cards included with the album set are Col-o-Ring, though you can also use the Iroful paper cards.
Fountain pen ink preferences are highly personal, and swatching is no exception. I tend to be a lot less strict in terms of things like format and technique than some people. For example, I have hundreds of ink swatches that I’ve accumulated over the years, many of which were not even done by me as they were gifts from friends, and none of them look the same and are on different-sized paper or even in a Rolodex. For my purposes, this is perfectly fine, but many prefer to have a uniform format that they can easily search. If you feel like sharing your technique, please do drop a comment or send a message.
The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program. If you’re interested in shopping fountain pens, inks, and more in person, come see us at our brick-and-mortar shop located in Nashville, Tennessee.
