Kyokuya - Sailor

Kyokuya by Sailor inks is one of the mysterious Yurameku inks. Nine inks with a twist. They change colour over time (so they say) and they appear different in colour depending on what paper you use. To try it out I bought only one. The one that most appealed to me on what I could find on Internet. Kyokuya seemed to me a very useful colour for sketching.

This ink is really something. In writing it seems quite normal and maybe even a bit boring. But once you start playing around with it.... oh my... But the writing first. For my writing samples I used a TWSBI vac mini with F nib. Even with this finer nib you can see the nice shading of the ink. Not a big surprise because these inks aren't very saturated. I like it. The colour is a bit mossy greyish green.

You can see in these samples between the different types of paper and how it affects the colour. And on the Iroful sample you can make out a little bit of the pale pinkish sheen it seems to produce. Very odd. Pretty.... but odd.

In this chromatography strip you can see how complex the ink really is. It has just about everything. No wonder it produces very unexpected results when making the sketch.

When adding water the magic really begins. And it is a bit difficult in the beginning to predict how it will turn out. In some places the colour turns more green, in other parts the pink suddenly pops up.

I just loved making this sketch. Part of it is the subject looks well in this colour of course. But also that pink in the field in front of the church gives it really something special. In the shadow parts I could go very dark. Resulting in beautiful contrasts.

This is the very small and very old church of Fransum in the Netherlands. Dating back to the 13th century. It's so charming in the middle of the open fields. I had a small exhibition there a few years ago.

After trying out this ink the other 8 colours of this Sailor Yurameku series are now on my wishlist. I hope the rest of them will be as fun as this Kyokuya ink. They make very pretty monochrome sketches. Although... monochrome?