Blackstone - Golden Wattle

Blackstone Golden Wattle - bright, sunny, ink drop

Golden Wattle was part of Blackstone Ink’s Colours of Australia series. The name Golden Wattle comes from a type of Acacia tree that’s native to Australia. Spherical yellow flowers cover the tree. It’s the nation’s national flower, and it inspires the green and yellow that make up Australia’s official national colors. This is arguably the most representative color of the nation, and certainly the nation’s most iconic yellow.

Generally, unless you look towards the darker, earthier, mustard shades of the color, yellow is tricky to get right as an ink. There’s no earthy mustard influence here, but they’ve created a gem of a yellow ink! Blackstone’s Golden Wattle is a brilliant, rich, warm, bright yellow. In the splatter, a textured, burnt orange sheen can be seen along the edges of areas of pooling. In written form, Golden Wattle is a rich, powdery, pure yellow, with none of the sheen seen in the splatter. On some papers, a subtle halo forms giving strokes a crisp, well-defined profile. Yellows can sometimes be difficult to read, but again, that isn’t the case here. Words jump off the page in sharp detail.

Blackstone Golden Wattle - swatch card

As a writing ink, Golden Wattle is smooth flowing and well-behaved. Overall, drying times were average or faster (15-30 seconds), but took longer on coated papers than on uncoated papers. I haven’t had any problems at all with feathering. It performed extremely well on everything, including cheap office copy paper!

In August 2020, Blackstone silently, and shockingly closed its doors. They’d been a cornerstone of the Australian ink market, and they are missed. If you can still find any, I definitely recommend Blackstone Golden Wattle. It’s a gorgeous, worry-free ink. If you’re looking for a true yellow, it’s hard to go wrong with this one!

December 2020