I could not wait to get my hands on Robert Oster Signature Fire & Ice ink ($16). It was sold out on Vanness Pens as soon as it was available so I had to wait a couple weeks to get a bottle of my own. It was totally worth the wait. This is one of the Oster inks with a lot of sheen so if that’s something you like in your inks, this is definitely a color to consider.
Fire & Ice is a blue ink that leans to the dark turquoise (ice) side with a red/magenta sheen, hence the “fire”.
The Oster inks still comes in the tall, slender 50ml plastic bottles, for better or worse, depending on your perspective. Its the only sticking point I have with their inks. I don’t mind the plastic part, since the inks ship all the way from Australia, I appreciate the overall weight reduction of the plastic and the dark material of the plastic. I even don’t mind the slender shape for storage but I know I’m going to get to a point with every single one of my Oster inks where I’m going to need to transfer them to other containers in order to get the inks out of the bottle. I’ll be buying lots of empty glass bottles from Vanness to store my inks for sure.
I hope the swatch comparison above helps show where Fire & Ice falls in the “blue and sheen-y” ink category — at least in my ink collection. I also included all the other bluish Robert Oster inks. Callifolio Omi Osun is very close in color but does not have the sheen. Oster’s Aqua, Torquay and Blue Denim all sheen as well but are different colors of blue. Torquay is much more turquoise, Blue Denim is a darker blue and Aqua looks more teal comparatively. Sailor Yama Dori and Pilot Iroshizuku Ku Jaku both have sheen but are closer in color to Oster Aqua than Fire & Ice. And finally, I included Private Reserve Daphne Blue and Akkerman Treves-Turquoise which both sheen a bit but are much lighter, brighter cool blues.
So… if you collect blue inks, sheening inks or turquoise inks with the same wild abandon that I do, you’ll not want to wait a second to order a bottle of Fire & Ice. It’s pretty magical and mesmerizing to write with. But if this kind of inky trickery is not your cup of tea, then you’ve been sufficiently warned. Oster makes many other ink colors that are beautiful colors that I’ll be reviewing soon that may be more to your taste.
This fourth and final installment of the brush pen series reviews bristle-tip pens containing water-soluble ink. Similar to their waterproof ink counterparts, these 10 brush pens have actual synthetic hair tips that take a bit of practice to get the hang of controlling. However, I find their lines to be more expressive and fluid than felt tip brush pens, so it is worth it to me to give them the extra effort to use.
Ink Color & Permanence
First, I’ll talk about the inks these pens contain. While they all look within a comparable range of black on the Canson XL 98-pound mixed media paper I scribbled on, the Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pen has a slightly purplish tinge (which is more apparent when washed with water). The Zig, the Pentel Standard Brush Pen (medium tip) and the Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pen have the darkest, richest washes when water is applied. That’s a quality I look for in water-soluble inks, since I generally use them when I want to take advantage of the wash for shading.
Compared to some of the water-soluble pens in the felt tip group, these inks mostly stayed water-soluble when washed a couple of weeks after the initial line had been applied. However, when I washed them again just now, more than a month since the initial application, all of them were nearly permanent. I think it’s safe to assume that these inks eventually become permanent over time.
All inks behaved as expected on Field Notes 60-pound Finch Opaque Smooth paper with very little bleed-through except where I had applied water. As I mentioned in the water-soluble felt tip review, it’s interesting to see the difference in the washes when comparing the Field Notes paper with the 98-pound Canson paper. Sized for water media, the Canson paper brings out the washed color, while the Field Notes paper makes the washes look more like wimpy blurs.
Although I tested only pens with black ink, it should be noted that the Akashiya Sai comes in 20 colors and the Zig Clean Color comes in 80! They can be blended like watercolors, and since they remain soluble for quite some time, you could continue blending them as you work. The Akashiya Sai ThinLine is available in five dark, natural tones. (I think I’m going to have to eventually get all five because I love the muted tones, which aren’t easily found in brush pens.)
Beyond these points, none of the inks stood out with any distinction. What I find distinctive about this group is the wide variety of form factors in which the pens are available.
Variety of Form Factors
By form factor, I’m referring to the size and shape of the pens. The three Sailor Fude Nagomi brush pens (the red, the green and the black) look the most like traditional Asian calligraphy brushes with their longer length and tapered body. (Incidentally, the three Nagomi pens are identical except for their body colors; I guess I would have known this before buying all three if I’d read the descriptions more carefully and hadn’t been so excited about having more brush pens to explore!)
Yellow Akashiya New Fude Disposable on 140lb Watercolor Paper
The Kuretake No. 30 Double-Sided Brush Pen has a firm felt-tip on the opposite end of the brush (a nice option that was offered on several of the water-soluble felt tip pens).
The Akashiya Sai and the Akashiya New Fude Disposable Brush Pen look similar, both with transparent caps, but are longer than the Kuretake Zig Clean Color, which is slightly thicker. The Akashiya ThinLine, however, is indeed a distinctly thin pen – a little too thin for my comfort. It could be mistaken for an eyeliner. The brush itself is somewhat thinner than the others in this review, but because of that, I missed the wider end of the range that I could get with the others. Its very tip was not any thinner than the other tips.
Sketched with Sailor Profit on Stillman & Birn Epsilon paper.
The Pentel has a reservoir and a soft barrel that can be squeezed to push more ink to the brush. (Beware: this is the type that will leak to high heaven at high altitudes.) It is refillable, however, with proprietary cartridges. The only other refillable pen in this group is the Sailor Profit Brush Pen, which looks like and is refillable like a Sailor Profit fountain pen.
The variety of shapes and sizes means that you can choose the one that fits your hand and work style most comfortably. If you are already familiar with a classic fountain pen body, then the Sailor Profit is an easy transition. If you like narrow barrels, then the Akashiya ThinLine might be a good choice. The Zig Clean Color has a body that feels the most like a classic marker, and I find the thicker barrel easier to use. The longer Sailor Nagomi pens might be difficult to handle, but they are nicely balanced even when posted.
Final Impressions
I’ve done it in all the other reviews, so I might as well complete the set: I am notably grumpy about caps that don’t post as expected. In this group, only the double-sided Kuretake has caps that must be reversed to post. All others made me happy by posting predictably.
While I tend to reach for waterproof inks more often, I have to say that the water-soluble aspect of these bristle brush pens encouraged me to experiment more. Most of my sketch samples in this series were done with brush pens only. For this review, however, I tried something different by sketching the pear first with oil-based Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils. Then I gave it shading with the Pentel, which I further blended with a waterbrush. The wash has enough transparency that the blended colored pencils underneath show through – an effect that I like.
I wore out all three Sailor Nagomi pens at life-drawing practice sessions. The expressiveness of the brush combined with the ability to conveniently shade by washing the line made them a joy to use.
While no clear favorite emerged from this group, this combination of brush and ink type is definitely a keeper in my sketch kit. In fact, as a result of writing this series, I now have four daily-carry brush pens, one of each type, because each serves a different sketching need.
I cannot believe its taken me so long to do a write up about the Quo Vadis Plan & Note Open Format Desk Planner. It’s simply the simplest answer to the “I need a planner” problem. It’s approximately A5 sized, bound with a flexible soft cover and features week-on-two-pages open planning pages AND FOUNTAIN PEN FRIENDLY PAPER. So…. basically, its the “problem solved” planner for a lot of people who have been asking for an alternative to the Moleskine planner but “with better paper”. This is it.
On the cover is a subtly embossed “2017” and the Quo Vadis logo in the lower right hand corner. There’s an option to choose the turquoise spine and elastic like this model or purple or pink.
Interior features:
Open layout for planning & notes
Week on 2-pages with equal pages for each day
Monthly calendar pages in the front
12 months – January-December
Covers are flexible, soft-touch material, not leatherette
Color binding & match vertical elastic closure
Forward planning for 2017 & 2018
White 90g paper
2-color printing
Tear-off corners to make wayfinding easier
Address book pages in back of book
The book itself is relatively thin so you won’t weigh yourself down with a big planner and can easily add an additional notebook to your daily carry without needing your own Sherpa.
Since most people will already have some familiarity with Quo Vadis paper (also Clairefontaine and Rhodia) I didn’t do a lengthy pen test since it felt like overkill. The 90gsm paper Quo Vadis uses is the same high quality paper that is used in most Quo Vadis, Clairefontaine and Rhodia products and can be depended upon to behave as such. This is Robert Oster Aqua in my Pilot Custom 912 with Waverly nib.
And shown above, the same page is viewed from the back. As you can see there is almost no show through and no bleed through as is expected from Quo Vadis paper.
So, if you are looking for a good quality, week-on-two-pages planner with lots of room for notes, the Quo Vadis Plan & Note Desk is a great option. And any Quo Vadis planner is guaranteed to feature awesome paper if you need a different size or configuration.
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Quo Vadis for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Oh, Pantone! You picked my signature color as the color of the year? Why, thank you. This year Pantone chose “Greenery” as their color for 2017. It’s also known as PMS 376C or PMS 15-0343 TCX, if you are familiar with Pantone’s color matching systems. Their theory is that 2017 will be a year of new beginnings and a year that we will need reassurances of nature, personal passions and vitality. I personally think Greenery is the color of every year but I’m happy to embrace it this year with abandon!
Butter London Greenery Polish $10 (via Butter London)
Comic book artist, family man and all-around good guy Mike Hawthorne kept Heather and I laughing with his wit and wisdom this week on Art Supply Posse #27. Mike illustrates the wonderfully bawdy Marvel comic book Deadpool and our conversation may also include some PG-13 language. (You’ve been warned.)
All pertinent links and shownotes on Art Supply Posse.
By popular request, I finally have a review of Robert Oster Blue Denim. It is one of the many shades of the new Robert Oster Signature Inks that I have and it is a great, shading, sheening color. There is a distinct red halo with this ink, even in finer nibs.It’s one of the first things you’ll notice along with the vibrant deep blue color. It’s definitely a cool blue, despite the red sheen. What a conundrum of a color! A cool color with a warm sheen!
I’ve mentioned it before but I’ll say it here, the only downside with the Oster inks, if you perceive it that way, is the bottle. It’s a plastic bottle. The bottle is tall and narrow which will require a syringe to access inks after a certain point and could be prone to tipping if you are not careful. You may want to decant the inks into a different container if you fill your pens directly from the bottle. However, the bottles are plastic which means they are unlikely to break in shipping and are recyclable which, in another way, is a plus. Also, the bottles are dark so they protect the inks from light so the colors are unlikely to shift due to exposure to light. So, there’s that.
In my writing sample, I used my trusty Esterbrook nib holder and my favorite #2442 fine stub nib which showed more turquoise coloring. I also have the Blue Denim ink in my Karas Kustoms Bar Stock Fountain K EF and the ink looks much darker with the red sheen far more evident. You can see a writing sample in my recent writing samples of the Ferme à Paris Planner writing tests.
Compared to some of the other Oster inks in my cupboard, Blue Denim is probably the closest to a “blue black”. Blue Denim is probably most comparable, color-wise to Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo and Noodler’s Navy — at least of the colors I have on hand. But clearly, there are differences. So see? You really do need another blue ink!
Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is 
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