Let’s get one thing cleared up real quick: Choosing a demonstrator barrel fountain pen may not have been the choice for this review. As you will soon find out, Rohrer & Klingner sketchINK Carmen is a pretty darn good ink, but I must admit that “Liquid Rust” or “Damp Tang” are suitable monikers for how it appears in this pen.
The odd color is actually there for a reason. Rohrer & Klingner sketchINKs are pigmented inks, and they tend to have a more cloudy appearance than their standard fountain pen ink friends. That’s a feature if you are looking for a waterproof, lightfast, and quick dry ink for general writing, journaling, and artwork.
I skipped over these when they first launched, thinking why do I need an ink with all of these additional features that I traditionally don’t care about? Well, I still don’t need to draw with ink pens over a layer of sketchINK, or wash over them with a watercolor brush, but others do, and maybe they would like to explore a little.
And, as it turns out, sketchINKs are pretty good general writing inks, too.
I chose a Pilot Prera with a CM (Calligraphy Medium) nib for this review, which is Pilot’s cursive/stub hybrid nib that checks in around 1.0 mm wide. While Carmen, and other sketchINKs are designed to work well with any nib width due to their ink flow, I wanted to see what character was in this shade.
The orange-yellow color is bright, and exhibits a decent amount of shading that I was surprised to get. The ink flow is fantastic, as advertised, and the dry time is average to above-average on Rhodia paper. I also did a quick test on Field Notes stock paper to see how it would perform, and it wasn’t good at all. Bleeding and feathering galore, which is the expectation from a pigment ink on this paper. Other lighter, thinner, absorbent papers will perform similarly.
The only downside to pigment inks are that you need to ramp up your pen cleaning program. JetPens recommends cleaning your pigment inked pens every four to six weeks, or if you don’t plan on using them for more than a week. They tend to clog up when not being used, but the actually cleaning part is easy and normal if you keep up with it.
Rohrer & Klingner sketchINK comes in 10 different shades, and I have picked up Frieda to test out as well, but with an extra fine nib. At $12 for a 50 ml bottle that decision was simple. For more on how sketchINKs work in more artistic situations, take a look at this great review from Parka Blogs.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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