Ugh, these little bottle of J. Herbin inks. It’s like little shots of addictive colors. I tried this sample of J. Herbin Rouge Opera and it’s really solidifying my newfound fascination for pink inks. Pink. Me? Imagine that. I guess stranger things have happened. But I have a few pink inks in my collection, and I love using them for calligraphy. Anyway, back to Rouge Opera.
The name means Opera Red, although the color is more like a warm pink. The writing sample was made on Tomoe River paper. I think that’s a really pleasant-looking pink ink. It’s not so hard to read, and the shading is pretty. It’s the kind of pink that pops out of a page, without looking too loud. It’s a nice, velvety pink that would make a lovely shade for a prom dress. It’s not too sweet-looking, like baby pink. It’s also saturated enough for daily writing, though probably not something you’d use for formal documents. I’d totally love to write personal letters with this ink, though. The creative applications such as pen and wash, and calligraphy are pretty interesting.
The ink is one of the wetter pink inks that I’ve tried. I like the flow, it doesn’t feel so dry and it doesn’t bleed a lot either. It’s a pretty well-behaved ink. The drying time is an average of 15 to 20 seconds in Tomoe River paper with a wet medium nib. There’s not much water resistance to speak of. A 30 second soak left only the faintest pink line behind.
Here are a few close ups of the writing sample.
I got this sample of Rouge Opera from Everything Calligraphy.
The Serial Doodler 