Coming to you directly from the Pacific Northwest of the US, Blackwater Craftworks has been hand making leather notebook covers since 2024. This Basalt A6 Journal cover features a beautiful stamp across the entire exterior, and plenty of room for your favorite notebook on the inside. I have one to give away this week, and the winner is:
Congrats Tom! I’ve sent you an email to collect your shipping address.
So glad the Bossman was at the St. Louis Pen Show cuz he picked up the latest inky releases from Amarillo Stationery for me to review!
Inspired by the gorgeous Bird of Paradise blooms, the Amarillo Paradise Vibes set of inks launched a few months ago and come in 30ml glass bottles. I mentioned in my Amarillo Vibes ink review that the bottles do look a lot like some from Birmingham Pen Company, Erick Gama (the guy behind Amarillo Stationery) confirmed that the inks are NOT made by them.
The box design goes across multiple sides of the box!
I love the addition of the ink names and swatches on the tops of the boxes - very handy for finding them in my ink drawers. The labels also have the name and color of the ink.
Here are the bottles with their Col-O-Ring swatch cards.
As in the past, all swatches were done on Col-O-Ring cards using a Kakimori steel dip nib, while writing samples were done with a TWSBI Go with a steel Medium nib and a Lamy Vista with a steel Medium nib. The TWSBI Go is a wetter writer and the Lamy is a drier writer, so these two give me a good idea of how an ink will look from different pens. The notebook used for writing samples is the Endless Recorder with 68 gsm Tomoe River paper. Dry times for the Vista are shown with “(V)” and the Go will be below that and shown with “(T)”. Dry times may be a bit slower on 52gsm TR or faster on paper like Cosmo Air Light, Rhodia, copy paper, or with drier or finer nibs, etc.
*Side note: Photographing inks is not easy. My photo editing skills are mediocre at best, so I prioritize swatch/writing sample accuracy over paper or background color accuracy. Even then, it doesn’t always work out – it could look great in the Lightroom app, and then less great when I export to my phone, or great on phone, and less great when I upload to the Bossman’s Dropbox, etc. * The Amarillo Paradise Vibes series includes “Blue Treat”, “Drama, Please”, “Needs More Sun”, and “Not Too Much!”
Amarillo Blue Treat.
Amarillo Blue Treat is a nice standard blue that has nice shading in drier pens and is a wee bit more vibrant than the typical standard blue in wetter pens.
Writing sample of Blue Treat on 68 gsm Tomoe River Odyssey Notebook.
You get more shading from the drier-writing Vista compared to the wetter Go. As expected, the ink is a bit darker and more saturated in the Go, but the main color is still the same. (Some inks can look very different in drier/wetter pens.)
Blue Treat had decently fast dry time.
Blue Treat’s chromatography has purple, blue, and tinges of turquoise on the edges. Since I have to trim my chromatography stripes to fit my glass, I decided to do a “dot chroma” by making a dot with the Go and then syringing a drop of water on top of it. Two drops results in a ringed effect - kind neat!
Inks similar to Amarillo Blue Treat: Papier Plume Calle Real (a touch lighter in writing sample), Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire (good color match but drier ink), Diamine China Blue (a touch on the blue-black side), Iroshizuku Tsuyu-kusa (a touch darker), and Akkerman #3 Blauw (the closest match.)
Amarillo Drama, Please.
Drama, Please takes its inspiration from the Bird of Paradise’s purple pop of color amidst the orange sepals of the plant. Amarillo describes it as a standard purple; I would add that it is slightly blue leaning, as opposed to a red purple.
Writing sample of Amarillo Drama, Please, where the difference in shading is quite drastic. Writing with the Lamy Vista did not feel dry even though the ink was a lot lighter.
Drama, Please is a lot darker and slightly more saturated with the Go, with the Vista writing sample looking almost like pastel lavender.
Similar to the chroma for Blue Treat, Drama, Please’s chromatography, has the edge of turquoise on the top but is primarily purple, with some pink undertones. You can almost see the pink in the drier Vista writing sample above.
Despite the significantly lighter writing from the Vista, both dry times were fairly similar and had average to slightly fast dry times.
Inks similar to Amarillo Drama, Please: Robert Oster GoGo (touch too light), Kobe 56 Shichidanka (closest match), Diamine Inkvent 2023 Jacaranda (a bit too light and pink), Diamine 160th Anniversary Athol Violet (a wee bit too red, but also very close.)
Amarillo Needs More Sun.
Needs More Sun is described as a standard orange but the yellow-orange shading on this one is SO GOOD! As with the others, there is more shading in the Vista but there’s some shading from the Go as well.
Writing sample of Needs More Sun on 68 gsm Tomoe River. It is a very readable orange, not being overly eye-searing, nor too light. Did I mention the shading?
The writing samples aren’t nearly as different with Needs More Sun than the others so far, but as to be expected, drier nibs tend to show off shading better.
Needs More Sun had decently fast dry times from both pens. Not sure what happened on that first line from the TWSBI Go because the other lines were orange.
Needs More Sun’s chromatography was a lovely surprise of rose, pink, and yellows, and some orange here and there.
Inks similar to Amarillo Needs More Sun: Ferris Wheel Press Pumpkin Patch (bit too red), Montblanc StarWalker Extreme Blaz Orange (very close match), Van Dieman’s West Coast Tangerine (very close match that’s a touch darker), Iroshizuku Yu-yake (a hint of peach by comparison.)
Amarillo Not Too Much!
Not Too Much! is a reminder to water your Bird of Paradise, but not too much! It is described as a bright standard green, though offhand it reminds me of Granny Smith apples.
Writing sample of Amarillo Not Too Much!
Not Too Much! looked similar from both the Vista and the Go, with the latter being ever so slightly more saturated.
Average dry times for both writing samples of Not Too Much!
The chromatography for Not Too Much! surprised me with the very dark olive line up top with the bright turquoise edge. The yellowy green was expected though.
Inks similar to Amarillo Not Too Much!: Diamine Inkvent 2024 Pine Needle (a bit on the muted olive side), Colorverse x Goldspot Cosmic Lime (very similar but has shimmer), Robert Oster Jade (a bit too dark and duller), Anderillium Bobtail Squid Green (a touch darker but very similar), Sailor x Tinterias Cilantro (not yellow enough nor close enough to a match but I had to include as a nod to the Tinterias podcast that Erick Gama used to co-host and is still being produced by Jeffrey Coleman.)
Swatches of the Amarillo Vibes (top four) and Paradise Vibes (bottom four) on 68 gsm TR in the Endless Recorder.
All 4 inks behaved well, wrote nicely, and cleaned out easily. Dry times were average and I’m a bit surprised that the shaders didn’t really dry that much faster, given how much shading they had from the Vista. The Amarillo Paradise Vibes ink series is currently available on the Amarillo Stationery website for $20/bottle (shipping is not included).
(Disclaimer: All four inks were purchased by the Bossman from Erick Gama of Amarillo Stationery at the St. Louis Pen Show. All other inks, swatches, and notebooks are my own.)
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Endless Pens MAZE, via Kickstarter.
It was time for me to solve a MAZE, as my Endless Pens 3D-printed fountain pen arrived from their Kickstarter campaign. It’s an interesting one, to say the least, and I’ve begun putting it through its paces. Myke and I also discuss the upcoming Hobonichi launch, an amazing Blackwing release, and an update to my Analog Defaults page.
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