Ink Review #873: Rohrer and Klingner SketchINK Carmen
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Rohrer and Klingner SketchINK Carmen is designed for sketching and drawing, but also works well for standard writing. This ink has a large color range-from pale yellow-orange to bright red. I purchased my sample of ink from Vanness Pens.
The color:
Carmen is a medium yellow-orange. At the palest it’s almost a yellow and at the darkest it reaches a bright red.
Swabs:
In large swabs on Tomoe River paper the ink shows off some of the darker red tones.
Writing samples:
Let's take a look at how the ink behaves on fountain pen friendly papers: Rhodia, Tomoe River, and Leuchtturm.
Dry time: 5 seconds
Water resistance: High
Feathering: Low-there was some feathering on Rhodia
Show through: Medium
Bleeding: Low-there was some bleeding on Rhodia.
Other properties: medium shading, no sheen, and no shimmer.
On Staples 24 lb copy paper there was feathering in every nib size, and some bleeding in the flex and broad nibs.
Comparison Swabs:
Carmen is similar to Papier Plume Sazerac, maybe just a little bit more vibrant. Click here to see the Rohrer and Klingner inks together, and click here to see the orange inks together.
Longer writing:
I used a medium Pelikan M600 Vibrant Orange on a Lochby A5 Lined Refill-Tomoe River 68gsm. The ink had an average flow.
Overall, I really like this ink. It dries super fast, is very water resistant, has a wide range of shading colors and is pretty affordable too. There are some downsides to this ink though-it looks chalky and washed out on Rhodia, and feathers and bleeds a bit on Rhodia as well. This doesn’t bother me since I don’t usually use Rhodia personally, and it performs well on the other papers. Since the ink is pigmented instead of dye-based it is important to shake the ink before filling, and have good pen hygiene. I would absolutely use this ink again.
Disclaimer: I purchased this ink myself, and all photos and opinions are my own. This page does not contain affiliate links, and this post is not sponsored in any way.