Kyo No Oto - Uraha-iro

Kyo No Oto - Uraha-iro - ink drop

Uraha-iro is part of Takeda Jimuki’s Kyo No Oto line of inks made for their Kyoto-based TAG Stationery stores. The Kyo No Oto line are colors related to Kyoto’s long history in the traditional dye craft of Japanese textiles. The name Uraha-iro translates as the color (iro) of the underside (ura) of leaves (ha). This beautiful, soft green has been a popular color for textiles in Japan for more than 1000 years. The poetic name captures the color very nicely.

Kyo No Oto - Uraha-iro - shades of color

Uraha-iro’s base color is a powdery, deep pastel ash green. It’s quite beautiful and unusual, and I don’t have anything quite like it. It provides just the right amount of expressive shading. Lighter shades are a soft, cool, minty floral green, while darker areas blend to the dusty, pastel base green. The splatter shows a textured, burnt black edge to areas of pooling, and this is covered with a platinum silver sheen. It’s a great combination against the greens.

Kyo No Oto - Uraha-iro - ink swatch card

As a writing ink, Uraha-iro performs extremely well. Some Kyoto TAG inks can be a bit dry, but no problems here. It has a smooth, moderately wet flow. On good papers, there’s a dark, defining halo that frames stroke shading beautifully. On Rhodia, Mnemosyne, Kokuyo, and Apica papers, strokes were crisp, and very well-defined. The sheen seen earlier did not carry over, but shading was nice (best on Kokuyo), and each had the dark halo. Drying times were 20-25 seconds. Strokes were only slightly less sharp on office copy paper, but there was no sheen, shading, or halo. It’s a very good ink on copy paper, making it a very versatile ink.

I really like Kyoto TAG inks, especially the wetter ones. They’re a bit expensive, but they’re consistent, high-quality inks, and their colors are sophisticated, unusual variations on standards. I highly recommend them.

November 2020