Ink Review - Rohrer & Klingner SketchINK Thea

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: Thea. 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.

Thea is a fairly complex grey ink that has brown undertones. It’s not a saturated ink and exhibited some shading. I liked the grey brown colour and found it nicely wet to write with.

One thing I noticed about Thea was that there was a significant amount of brown sediment in the bottom of the sample vial. R&K say that you have to shake these inks well before filling your pen and never allow them to dry out inside your pen. I had to shake the ink vigorously in my sample vial in order that the brown sediment disappeared, and after filling my Lamy converter I saw that it settled again along the inside of the converter tube.

It wrote with very tight, crisp lines, as is common with pigmented inks, and it dried quickly on my Clairefontaine Triomphe paper. It is lightfast and completely waterproof when dry, but while wet can be mixed with water to make a really attractive wash onto the paper. For sketching those are excellent qualities.

• Start-up: Immediate.
• Flow Rate: Very good - felt quite wet but dried quickly.
• Lubrication: Very good - felt really smooth across the page.
• Saturation: Not saturated.
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen. 
• Show-through / Bleed-through: None seen.
• 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.