Color Traveler - Shodoshima Olive

Color Traveler Shodoshima Olive - Ink Drop

Shodoshima Olive Green is from Color Traveler. Based in Hiroshima, Japan, Color Traveler is Tayama Bungu’s (Tayama Stationery’s) in-house ink brand. The brand’s colors and names are based on the concept of travel and are chosen to spotlight domestic destinations of beauty and historical interest. Shodoshima is a beautiful island four hours east of Osaka. Meaning “island of small beans”, it’s famous for its soybeans, and produces Japan’s finest soy sauce. Lesser known is the island’s true passion — olives! 25% of Japan’s olives are from here. Interestingly, “shodo” is also the word used to describe “the art of traditional calligraphy”. Connecting both olives and calligraphy, can you think of a more appropriate name for an olive-green ink?

Shodoshima Olive Green is an earthy, rich, verdant green. There is some shading at times, but it generally shades from medium to dark olive. The lighter notes seen in the splatter don’t appear in writing.

Shodoshima Olive Green’s swatch card

It's a very nice writing ink when paired with the right papers. It’s wet, but not too wet, and is very smooth flowing. Drying times varied from 10-15 seconds on uncoated paper to 40-45 seconds on coated paper. Variance was also found in stroke profile. It performed best on Rhodia, Mnemosyne, and Kokuyo papers, with little or no feathering, and crisp strokes. When using my wet, medium test pen, feathering was unacceptably heavy on Apica, and office copy paper. I’d stay away from both unless you’re using a very fine nib.

Overall, I’m impressed with Color Traveler inks. I like their colors and concept, and performance has generally been very good. Keep paper choice in mind when purchasing Shodoshima Olive Green. With the wrong paper and nib, feathering can be a real problem. However, when you get it right, it’s a lovely ink.

October 2020