David Garrett
Remember to speak
Remember to speak
David Garrett
Remember to breathe

2020 is certainly one for the history books. I can’t remember a time in my life when every one of the over seven billion members of our species seemed to be this stressed out for this long *all at the same time*. These are undoubtedly the “interesting times” referred to in the perpetually misattributed curse.

Remember to breathe
David Garrett
fountain pens for beginners

green ink

Ink Review: Kaweco Palm Green

Kaweco Palm Green ink

As I mentioned in my review of Diamine Meadow, I am not a connoisseur of green ink. I had a grand total of three specimens (J. Herbin Vert Empire, J. Herbin Vert Olive, and Iroshizuku Shinryoku) sitting on my self until I picked up Meadow. Vert Empire and Shinryoku were too dour to be of interest to me, and Vert Olive is so vibrant as to be all but unusable. Additionally, green isn’t a color that tends to hold my interest, especially when compared to blue, red, and violet, but Meadow opened my eyes to the versatility of green ink.

I mention this so that you know that I am neither damning with faint praise nor speaking from a position of scholarly authority when I say that Kaweco Palm Green is my favorite green ink after Diamine Meadow. It is a lovely forest green that has the best shading of any of the eight Kaweco colors, and which exhibits the excellent behavior characteristics of the line.

Palm Green behaves admirably across all paper types, exhibiting low levels of feathering and a narrow, crisp line even on cheap paper. This comes at a cost of a fairly dry flow, but it is not so severe as to be off-putting. It dries quickly across the board.

Paper Dry Time Bleed Through Show Through Feathering
Copier 1 second Low Moderate Low
Bagasse 3 seconds Moderate Moderate Low
Rhodia 10 seconds None Low None
Midori 10 seconds None Low None
Canson 10 seconds None None None

Kaweco Palm Green water test

Kaweco Palm Green performed identically to all of the other Kaweco colors in the water resistance tests. It has little in the way of water resistance, turing into a green smudge on the smear test (where I run a wet finger across the page), easily lifting from the paper on the drip test (where I let several drops of water sit on the paper before blotting), and washing cleanly away on the incorrectly labeled soak test (where I run the page under a stream of water for half a minute).

I wouldn’t recommend using it in any application that requires water-resistance, like addressing an envelope or signing a check. 

Kaweco Palm Green bottle

Kaweco Palm Green bottle

Kaweco ink comes in two forms: cartridges and 30ml glass bottles, which is the format I used during testing. The bottles themselves are pleasantly designed, and the labels accurately reflect the color of the ink inside them. I have no real complaints about the bottle, other than I had to tip it to the side slightly in order to create sufficient depth to fill my test pen properly.

Of the eight ink colors, Palm Green isn’t quite my favorite - that honor belongs to Caramel Brown, which I haven’t reviewed yet - but it is the one that has gone back into my in rotation more often than any of the other colors since I did my initial testing five months ago. If you need a great green ink that behaves very well, and are willing to put up with a relatively dry flow as a tradeoff, then I would recommend Kaweco Palm Green.

Kaweco Palm Green is available from many fine retailers, including:

Review notes: the handwritten portion of the review was created on 160 gsm, acid free, mixed media paper from Canson’s XL line. All lines, broad and thin, were made using a Pilot Parallel pen with a 3.8mm calligraphy nib.

A bottle of Kaweco Palm Green was generously provided by the fine folks at Kaweco for review. 

Ink Review: Diamine Meadow

I’m not a connoisseur of green ink. I’ve reviewed J. Herbin’s Vert Olive and Vert Empire, and I have Iroshizuku Shinryoku sitting on my shelf, but none of them have spent much time in my pens. Over the years, I’ve reviewed plenty of red and blue ink, and I love a good purple, but green isn’t a color that captured my imagination – until I tried Diamine Meadow.

There’s no mystery in the inspiration behind the name of the ink – no foreign (to English speakers) language to parse or obscure tidbit to research – only the verdant, vibrant, green of an English meadow. The ink is a lovely, moderately saturated yellow-green that exhibits a very high degree of shading. Like most Diamine ink, it is neither especially dry nor especially wet. It is pleasant to write with, but doesn’t go out of its way to make the pen glide across the page.

In my experience, Diamine ink performs consistently across the different colors of the line: it feathers on absorbent, un-sized paper, and it behaves admirably on coated, ink-resistant paper. Meadow behaved as expected on the five paper types I used to test it: cheap, office copier paper; Staples Bagasse notepad; Rhodia Bloc pad; Midori MD notebook; and Canson XL Mix Media notebook.

Paper Dry Time Bleed-Through Show-Through Feathering
Copier 1 second Yes Medium Moderate
Bagasse 3 seconds Yes Medium Moderate
Rhodia 8 seconds No Low None
Midori 15 seconds No Low None
Canson 20 seconds No None None

While an actual meadow is invigorated by a healthy rain, growing bolder and more verdant as a result, Diamine Meadow is affected in precisely the opposite fashion. The smear test, in which I run a wet finger over the paper, produced a lovely yellow-green smudge, obliterating the lines on the page. In the drop test, in which I leave water on the paper for 10 seconds before blotting it up, the ink lifted easily from the page, leaving a ghostly haze behind.

The soak test, in which I run water over the paper in an attempt to wash the ink away, completely obliterated my writing; only a hint of color remained. In fact, I cut the test short for fear of washing the ink away entirely.

Diamine ink is available in 30ml plastic and an 80ml glass bottles, both of which are utilitarian and slightly boring in appearance. The 30ml plastic bottle has a neck that is very small in diameter, and I found that some of my larger pens would not fit all the way in, which made getting to the ink a bit of a challenge. Though you may wish to go with the smaller volume to try out a new color, my recommendation would be to go for the larger bottle due to its superior usability.

Diamine Meadow is gorgeous and I’ve had a fantastic time using it. It looks phenomenal flowing from an extra-fine nib, a flex nib, and a super-wide calligraphy pen. It’s a tremendous value for the cost – 80ml for about $15 – which is good, because the shading that it displays seems to compel serious amounts doodling.

Diamine Meadow is available from multiple sources, including:

Review notes: the handwritten portion of the review was created on 160 gsm, acid free, mixed media paper from the Canson XL line. The broad lines were made using a Pilot Parallel pen with a 3.8mm calligraphy nib. The fine lines were created using a Noodler’s Konrad fitted with a steel flex nib.