Ink Review: Seasonal and Indigo Dyeing ink from Lennon Tool Bar Inks 藍濃道具屋

Lennon Tool Bar was founded in 2014 at Tamsui 淡水, Taiwan. According to their introduction, they produced and promoted the art and craft of Indigo Dyeing, a business that flourished a century ago. It seems that Lennon keeps releasing a small group of limited edition inks that are perfect for the said season. I was so excited to test out the two bottles of Seasonal and Indigo Dyeing ink from Taiwan 藍濃道具屋 received from friend earlier with the Shaded Spencerian Script learnt from Mike Ward and Wedge brush techniques from Jen Sweeney.

They are water-based Fountain Pen Inks and work well for ink drawing. You can simply dilute the ink by dipping into a bit of water to soften the tone and play with it like watercolor below. For the floral, you can dip the tip of the wet brush into the ink on a palette so that you can see the concentrated ink at the centre.

The color of the leaves were the mixture of the two inks and water. It was fun to play around with some wedge brush techniques.

I love the Oyster (蚵仔) fountain pen ink which is an subtle grey color with hints of blue. It was released in 2020 Autumn-Winter season. As you know, Taiwanese oyster omelet 蚵仔煎 is a very popular dish that you can easily find at Taiwan's famous night markets. This Oyster ink is a limited seasonal edition comes in with an extremely elegant gift box with a shiny Oyster illustration decorated on the cover. This special ink was set to enhance the heritages of Taiwanese and oriental culture. It contains a bottle of 35 ml fountain pen ink, a booklet about its history and even Oyster recipes, and 3 very nice postcards. The booklets have two versions: one volume in Chinese and another one in Taiwanese with audiobook in Taiwanese which is very interesting.

Hobe (滬尾) (Formosa color scheme) is another lovely indigo ink. It comes in a glass bottle of 30 ml with a simple blue box packing. I just realised that Hobe is the older Taiwanese name of Tamsui . This color, according to the introduction, was inspired by the glittering surface of Tamsui River at sunset which I missed a lot.

I really like the quote printed on the boxes of their ink : "To turn love into ink" 😊 I hope every of my handwritten note or card can bring warmth to your hearts 💙.

『墨色如情書一般，傳達我的心意。』