By way of introduction Scribo is a young Italian brand with a long history. Their fountain pen ink range consists of 13 dye based inks that come in square glass stackable 90ml bottles. This particular swatch test and review is part of a United Inkdom meta review and the samples have been very kindly donated by Write Here.
Swatch cards
The 13 inks: Arancio di Sicilia, Rosso Chianti, Rosso Melograno, Classico Sepia, Nero Nero, Verde Prato, Verde Bosco, Blu Capri, Grigio Scribo, Blu Cosmico, Notturno Viola, Verde Mediterraneo and Giallo Cannella are all good quality. From a creative point of view, they blend with water easily, react with bleach and they are bright.
Four inks in particular stand out for me – Blue Cosmico has a fabulous copper sheen, Verde Mediterraneo has a noticeable rose metallic rose sheen, VerdeBosco has some decent chromatic activity going on but Grigio Scribo is my favourite and for all of you who are into greys, check out that chromo in the landscape swatch below – greys with cyan and a hint of salmon pink. Gorgeous!
So yes – nice range of inks BUT and this is a big BUT, circa £30 for a single 90ml bottle of ink is in my opinion a lot of money. Inks from the Pelikan Edelstein, Diamine and Robert Oster ranges are equally as vivid and arguably very similar at less than half the price. I say this purely from a creative point of view and for using inks in art. I don’t test inks in terms of drying speed and smudging so maybe one of the other reviewers may be able to justify the price. Maybe the glass bottle is of cut crystal? I don’t know, the bottle wasn’t provided.
To sum up, nice inks but for me too expensive especially when there are other excellent ink wizards out there providing equally as good and arguably better inks at a fraction of the cost for these. Many thanks to Write Here for donating the samples and of course to United Inkdom for inviting me to participate in the meta review.
All tests on Bockingford Rough 200lb watercolour paper, Seawhite cartridge paper and Tomoe River paper with handwriting using a Noodler’s Creeper pen and an automatic pen.
AND HEY! If you’re interested to know more about how to use fountain pen inks in more creative ways – whether it’s simply to observe their chromatic behaviours, or, to recreate one of my swatch cards, or, to learn how to use them in watercolour painting, illustration and calligraphy, why not check out my online course ?
FOUNTAIN PEN INK ART 