One of the reasons many of us fell in love with writing with a fountain pen is the endless possibilities that come with using bottled ink, which have a variety of colours, all with different properties such as shading, sheen and shimmer. We wanted to highlight the Yurameku series of inks from Sailor, who make some of our favourite inks here at Phidon. These fountain pen inks have amazing shading, giving off multiple colour tones as you write, and making ink even more fun to use. Not only are they great for journaling, but the special multi-tone properties of this series makes it a fun art tool for sketching with your favourite fountain pens.

The paper you choose to use can change how the ink is displayed on the page, so experimenting with different fountain pen friendly papers can bring out even more of a variety of tones, all coming from the same bottle of ink. It is surprising how the colours, shades and tones can change so drastically depending on what paper and fountain pen nib size you choose to write with. A broader nib would leave more ink on the paper, giving an even more impressive shading effect. We used a Col-O-Ring mini ink testing book and a Life Stationery x Kleid notebook, but these same inks would look very different on other paper such as Midori MD paper or Rhodia paper. You can see that Kyokuya looks more grey on the Tomoe River paper and it looks more green in the Life notebook.

We tested three inks on Tomoe River, Leuchtturm1917 80gsm paper and a Life x Kleid 2mm grid notebook.

Just like in the Ink Studio, Shikiori and 50 States series from Sailor, the 20ml glass bottle size is perfect for trying a range of colours without the commitment of a big bottle. This dye-based ink is sure to be a fun addition to your collection, coming in a variety of calming colours, ranging from light blues and greys, to greens and mauves, which is sure to please with every stroke of your fountain pen.