The second of the Black Swan inks is Black Swan in English Roses, which is much different from its Australian cousin (as you can see in the picture to the right that compares the two Swans).English Roses is a deep, bright burgundy, reminding me of the wine inks of De Atramentis. It has more in common with a poppy than a rose (as Nathan Tardiff notes in his video). The ink's shading is beautiful but understated to my eye.
By contrast, Australian Roses is a black cherry color, and has a much heavier shading quality to the ink. It's a much darker color and doesn't have the brightness of English Roses.
Drying time is neither very quick nor very slow, just a regular Noodler's ink drying on the page. The paper I used isn't in the Rhodia/Clairefontaine category, but a bit better than copy paper.
The Roses inks aren't waterproof, but I was surprised at how well they held up when water was poured over them and then rubbed into the writing.
Definitely take a look at the video, the art work and explanations of the process behind the ink are always worth watching.
I only ordered Black Swan in Australian Roses last week. I really like its dark Shiraz or Melot colouring.
ReplyDeleteEnglish Roses looks a much cleaner red, unfortuanely a bit too bright for my use although it could be used when marking if you were a teacher.
For non-waterproff they are still fairly readable after a bath.
Amazing. My experience with English Roses is much different. There was none of the brightness or redness that yours shows, even on fine papers like Rhodia or Clairefontaine. If you don't look really carefully, it appears to be brown. I got frustrated with how similar it looks to Noodler's Kiowa Pecan, in normal lighting conditions. Yours turned out to be really red, which is what I was hoping for. If I dilute mine with lots of distilled water, I can get a sort of dull pink, but that's the closest I get to red.
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