Push/Pull | Salish Fountain Pen Ink | 20ml Vial

Deep sea blue with gold shimmer, named for the water outside Push/Pull’s door.

Salish is named for the Salish Sea, the body of water that wraps around Seattle. It’s a deep sea blue with golden mica mixed in, so the dark strokes pick up a warm glint where the ink pools.

Push/Pull is an artist co-operative in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood: an art supply shop, gallery, and small press that started in a basement studio in 2013. They mix their own watercolors, gouache, and fountain pen inks in the store, a batch at a time. That’s the appeal and the caveat in one: these are small-batch, hand-made inks, so the color can drift slightly from one batch to the next.

Push/Pull formulates it to dry fast, which is a real help for left-handed writers whose hand follows the line across the page, and it is not waterproof, so keep it away from wet hands and coffee rings.

A word on the shimmer, because it changes how you use the ink. It comes from fine particles that settle in the vial between uses. Give the vial a gentle roll before every fill, use a medium or broader nib in a pen that writes on the wet side, and flush the pen every couple of weeks. A fine-nibbed Preppy will write with it, but it’ll show off the shimmer much less and ask for more cleaning.

20 ml vial. Works in fountain pens, dip pens, and with a brush. Hand-mixed in Seattle.

• Color Deep sea blue with gold shimmer, named for the water outside Push/Pull’s door
• Shimmer gold mica; roll the vial before filling and flush the pen more often
• Fast drying formulated by the maker to dry quickly, which helps left-handed writers
• Not waterproof keep it away from wet hands
• Fountain pen, dip pen, or brush one vial covers writing, lettering, and illustration
• 20 ml vial roughly twenty converter fills
• Small-batch and hand-mixed made in Push/Pull’s shop in Ballard, Seattle; color can vary slightly between batches

How to fill a pen from the vial

1. Roll the vial gently between your palms for half a minute to lift the shimmer off the bottom. Don’t shake it hard; that just makes bubbles.
2. Fit a converter to your pen and twist or press it all the way down to push the air out.
3. Dip the nib into the vial until the whole nib and a little of the section are under the ink. The vial is slim, so tilt it slightly as it gets low, or use a blunt-tip syringe to draw ink straight into the converter.
4. Draw the ink up slowly, then hold the pen nib-up and turn the converter back a touch to push out any air bubble.
5. Wipe the nib and section with a paper towel, cap the vial tightly, and write.

How to clean your pen

1. Flush every couple of weeks while you’re using a shimmer ink, and always before a pen goes in a drawer.
2. Empty the converter back into the vial or the sink, then draw up cool water and expel it until it runs clear.
3. Shimmer particles collect in the feed. If the line starts to fade, soak the section in a cup of cool water for an hour before flushing again.
4. Let the pen dry nib-down on a paper towel before refilling. Cool water only: no hot water, alcohol, or solvents.