Pennonia - Zöldike

Pennonia - Zöldike - Ink drop

Today’s ink is Zöldike, a summer 2020 release from Pennonia. The song of the zöldike (or greenfinch in English) used to be heard throughout Hungary. Today, it is a threatened species. The name Zöldike honors the songbird, and highlights the importance of preserving nature and wildlife for future generations.

Like it’s avian namesake, Zöldike is a beautifully rich, powdery olive green, and it’s a powerful shading ink. Each stroke blends from deep olive, to light olive, and into a bright yellow olive at stroke ends. This gives the appearance of rays of sunshine touching portions of each stroke, creating a beautiful dappled effect across the page. The splatter shows a dark edging to areas of pooling, and although there is a stroke halo on premium papers, it doesn’t have the same dark intensity.

Pennonia - Zöldike - Ink swatch card

As a writing ink, Zöldike doesn’t disappoint!  It isn’t the wettest ink, but it flows smoothly. Strokes were well-defined and clean on all six test papers. Shading was also strong, on both coated and uncoated papers. There was no halo on office copy, but it was subtle to moderate on all of the others, and was particularly nice on Fabriano. I rated it a “great” on all six papers. Drying times were a consistent pleasure at 10-20 seconds on premiums, and 5 on office copy.

Zöldike is a beautiful ink on paper, and a very enjoyable writing ink. Pennonia have a real winner here, and they continue to impress me. This is an ink to anchor a brand, and along with Róka Koma (their beautiful yellow and reddish orange) could be the brand’s signature inks. I highly recommend it!