Taccia Ukiyo-e Fountain Pen Ink Ao Murasaki - Grayish Blue

Ao Murasaki – roughly "blue violet" in Japanese – is a quiet, cool grey-blue with roots in the colour woodblock prints of Japan's Edo period. The ink belongs to the Taccia Ukiyo-e series, whose colours were developed and professionally curated by a colour consultant in Japan. The inspiration comes from the work of Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806), one of the most significant masters of Ukiyo-e, renowned especially for his sensitive portraits of women and whose elegant visual language profoundly influenced French Impressionists. The grey-blue of Ao Murasaki carries the muted, restrained character that distinguished the natural pigments of the original woodblock prints.

Features

• Restrained grey-blue in the spirit of Ukiyo-e: The colour is neither a clear blue nor an open grey, but a quiet mid-tone with cool depth – typical of the reserved, multi-layered palette of Edo-period colour woodblock prints.
• Water-based fountain pen ink: Flows smoothly through standard fountain pen nibs, compatible with piston, cartridge and converter systems, and can be easily filled directly from the wide-mouth bottle.
• Wide-mouth bottle: The broad opening allows effortless filling – even with stub nibs and deeply-built ink pistons, you can reach the ink cleanly.
• 40 ml capacity: For an ink you use regularly, a comfortable supply size without frequent repurchasing.
• Illustrated packaging: The box features a reproduction of the corresponding Ukiyo-e print, making the product a visual homage to Utamaro's artistic world.
• Developed under the supervision of a colour consultant: All colours in the series were coordinated in Japan by a professional colour consultant and conceived by writing stationery sommelier Hiroshi Ishizu – not a random approximation of historical colour tones, but a curated translation.

Use & Tips

• Everyday writing: As a restrained grey-blue, Ao Murasaki is a characterful alternative to black or navy – legible, yet with its own quiet mood on the page.
• Sketching and drawing: Water-based inks of this saturation work well for sketching with fountain pen and brush – Ao Murasaki can be lightened and layered with water, enabling soft grey tones and atmospheric transitions.
• Paper recommendation: The colour nuance is shown to best effect on smooth, ink-resistant paper. Tomoe River Paper (52 gsm) displays the exact colour tone, potential shading behaviour and any shimmer effects particularly distinctly.
• Nib recommendation: A medium to broad nib releases more ink and shows the colour depth better. With fine nibs, Ao Murasaki appears more silvery-grey; with broader nibs, the blue becomes more prominent.
• Not archival: The ink is designed for everyday fountain pen use and creative applications, but is not waterproof or archival – for documents that might get wet, choose an archival alternative.
• Filling: The wide-mouth bottle makes it easy to insert the piston filler directly or fill using a converter – no need to decant into a separate filling vessel.

For Ink Enthusiasts

The Taccia Ukiyo-e series is the result of deliberate colour curation: rather than working with saturated, poster-like colours, the inks draw inspiration from the pigments used by Edo-period printers for nishiki-e multi-colour printing – tones that appeared soft and muted on Japanese paper because the natural pigments were less lightfast and less purely saturated than modern aniline dyes. Ao Murasaki translates this principle into a water-based fountain pen ink: a tone that can shift between dusty blue-grey and a warm, slightly violet undertone depending on nib, paper and light. On Tomoe River Paper with a medium to broad nib, the shading behaviour is particularly pronounced – narrow lines appear lighter and greyer, broad lines reveal the full colour depth. Those using the ink for drawings can blur with water to achieve wash gradations reminiscent of the flat, transcendent transitions in Utamaro's bijin-ga prints.

Technical Specifications