Ink Review - Rohrer & Klingner SketchINK Jule

Rohrer & Klingner Leipzig-Co. makes many excellent quality inks, and has been making inks and more in Germany since 1892. A renowned ink maker that doesn’t seem to be mentioned as much as some others.

Chrissy here again and today I’m reviewing one of Rohrer & Klingner’s Sketch Inks: Jule. These sketch inks are nano-pigmented inks, so the usual warnings about not leaving them in your unused pens for long periods, and exercising good pen hygiene should be followed.

The first thing I noticed about Jule is that it is an unusual colour. It’s something like a pink/purple/brown earth type colour. It’s quite attractively different. I’ve seen mushroom gills in this colour, and that’s the nearest description I could think of to the ink colour. I really enjoyed writing and trying to sketch with it. It wrote with very tight, crisp lines, as is common with pigmented inks, and it dried quickly. It’s also completely waterproof when dry, but while wet can be mixed with water to make a really good wash onto the paper. For sketching those are excellent features.

A light wash of sketchINK daubed across an A4 sheet of plain Rhodia or Clairefontaine Triomphe paper, makes a nice personally designed piece of writing paper. I received a letter on one and had to try it for myself. After brushing it all over with the wash, and while it was still wet, I dabbed it a few times with my hands, folded it in half and back again, to make unusual patterns on the surface, then put it in a plastic bag and dried it flat under several heavy books.

I didn’t have any inks that were a similar colour to Jule. I thought KWZ Brown-Pink would be the closest, but that is much pinker.

• Start-up: Immediate.
• Flow Rate: Excellent - neither wet nor dry.
• Lubrication: Excellent - felt really smooth across the page.
• Saturation: Quite a saturated ink.
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen on any paper I used.
• Show-Through/Bleed-through: Slight show through seen on some of the papers I used including Clairefontaine Triomphe.
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Clogging: Not seen.
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after several days in the pen.
• Staining (pen): Didn’t stain my sections or converters.
• Staining (hands): Washed off easily.
• Water resistance: A completely waterproof ink.