Lennon Tool Bar The Poetry of Light Ying Piao - 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: Lennon Tool Bar describe this as a teal blue lit with green and gold shimmer, and it is generally listed as a teal. My swatches show something more dual-toned than that: the ink lays down as a mid teal-blue in thin, wet areas, but wherever it pools or dries down it separates hard into a bright yellow-green, with dark navy-blue edges where the pigment gathers. My writing sample reads more green than teal on the page. If you're buying this expecting a straightforward teal, be aware the green is a full partner in the colour rather than a highlight. 

Shading: Strong. My swatches run from a dark blue-green through mid teal to a light chartreuse, and the transitions are abrupt rather than gradual — this is chromatic separation as much as tonal shading, and it's the most striking thing about the ink.

Sheen: None that I can see in my swatches. The metallic look in the darker areas is shimmer settling, not a sheen layer.

Shimmer: Yes — fine gold particles, dense and evenly spread across the swab, the writing and the drops.  

Flow: Medium.

The interesting bit: Lennon Tool Bar was founded in Tamsui, Taiwan in 2014, originally to promote indigo dyeing — a trade that flourished in Taiwan a century ago, when the island exported large quantities of "doroai," the raw colourant used in the process. The ink line grew out of that, as a way of putting the colours of traditional dyeing in front of people. This ink belongs to The Poetry of Light series, 濯影 (Zhuó Yǐng), a name referring to the illusion seen when dyed fabric is washed in water; the whole series depicts what a dyer sees working late into the night. Ying Piao's own scene: a secluded field workshop, a night of insect noise and splashing dye, and then a sudden pause in which fireflies are found dancing all around. The name pairs 螢, firefly, with 縹, a classical term for a pale blue — which explains why the ink insists on being blue and green at once rather than settling on either.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.
Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.
I'm a collector and I'm always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.