Nahvalur, formerly Narwal Pens, are a relatively young Chinese pen company based in New Jersey USA. With an ever expanding portfolio of fountain pens and encouraged by good feedback from customers, they have very recently expanded their product line to include fountain pen inks.
For context, those of you not familiar with this project, my investigation involves deconstructing fountain pen inks with water and bleach to observe how they behave and might then be utilised for creative purposes other that handwriting.
The Nahvular fountain pen ink collection consists of eight colours – four Explorer inks (standard inks) and four Rover inks (gold shimmer inks).
The Rover inks consist of: Starry Night – a deep dusty blue, Honey Comb – a dusty dark orange, Jade – a deep dusty green and Galaxy – a deep dusty grey. All four inks reveal subtle chromo action and all react well with bleach. These colours all seem to have a slight retro feel to them a bit like applying a Kodak filter to an image. I like it!
The Explorer inks consist of: Dark Forest – a deep dusty forest green, Atlantic Blue – a dusty cyan, Orchid Flower – a dusty magenta and Mango Sorbet – a dusty yellow. The chromo action here is much more subtle but the bleach reaction is fabulous! What we also have here is effectively 3 primary colours – cyan, magenta and yellow from which you can mix up all your other colours and once again they all have this lovely retro look to them.
The inks all come box packaged featuring a clean illustration based design with their lovely abstract narwhal whale identity. These inks are available at most reputable stationery shops. Thanks to Belinda for sending. For further info on Nahvalur: https://nahvalur.com
Swatch tests conducted on Bockingford rough 200lb watercolour paper and Seawhite cartridge paper. I used a 1/4 inch nib automatic pen and a Noodler’s Creaper pen for the abstract lettering.
The workshop here at my studio in Rochester on Saturday 13 May 2023 is fully booked.
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 