Monday, December 28, 2009

Iroshizuku Tsutsuji


In April in Japan is the Bunkyo Tsutsuji Matsuri, the famous Tokyo azalea festival at Nezu Shrine in Bunkyo-ku where visitors can admire more than 3,000 azalea bushes (tsutsuji) in bloom on the grounds of the shrine. The azalea most of us are familiar with is a deep, hot pink flower with lots of shading and variation in its color, a perfect description of Iroshizuku's Tsutsuji fountain pen ink. Bleets recommended this particular color when I was contemplating a JetPens ink order recently, and though I'm not a fan of either the azalea flower or pink fountain pen ink I decided to give it a try.

I love this color! Although it doesn't show in this photo, this ink shades quite a lot from light hot pink to dark hot and that gives the sentences an interesting look--not just a sea of "same old pink" color but lots of depth to the written words. Like most of the Iroshizuku inks, this isn't quick drying although Tsutsuji dried faster than I expected. I've inked up my Namiki black celluloid with a 14K fine nib, and am on my second fill of pink ink. I'm looking forward to using this at department meetings; I might take along my Namiki 823 filled with Kon-Peki to take pink-and-blue-notes.

4 comments:

  1. Told you! Good post, Miz PB. I think you're going to spice up your dept meeting with that rush of azalea.

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  2. This was one of the first Iroshizuku inks I bought. I turned a few other people onto it who love pinkish colored inks. It's quite a color.

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  3. Nice pink color, very bright and vivid.

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  4. Lol,all. I can't wait to take it in to the next meeting--eyes pop when I pull out a fountain pen to take notes, add to that the deep pink and people will have the vapors. ;)

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