Ink Review: Rohrer & Klingner sketchINK Marlene

[Chrissy]

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.

Today I’m reviewing another one of Rohrer & Klingner’s Sketch Inks: Marlene. 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.

Marlene is what I would call a light blue or a sky blue ink. It’s not a saturated ink and exhibited some nice shading but no sheen. I enjoyed writing and trying to sketch with it. It wrote with very tight, crisp lines, as is common with pigmented inks, and it dried very quickly on my Clairefontaine Triomphe paper. It’s lightfast and 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.

R&K Marlene1.jpg

• Start-up: Immediate.
• Flow Rate: Excellent - felt quite wet but dried quickly.
• Lubrication: Excellent - felt really smooth across the page.
• Saturation: Not saturated.
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen on any paper I used.
• Show-through / Bleed-through: Both seen on CiAK by InTempo but I could still write on the reverse.
• Nib Dry-out: Not seen.
• 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.

R&K Marlene.jpegR&K Marlene 2.jpeg