First look - Robert Oster 2019 Inks

At the Sydney pen show a few months ago, I had the good fortune of being located right next to the gigantic Robert Oster stand. During the show itself, I was a bit preoccupied, so I wasn’t quite aware of what was going on over at the Robert Oster stand, but at the end of the day, I got the chance to potter around the pen show and see some of the stalls that were up.

Next door, the Robert Oster guys had set up a massive swatching station with all of their inks out for people to play around with, swatch and ink their pens up with.

They were also giving away some samples of their new inks that they had just released in 2019. As I was having a nosy, I was kindly offered some of the samples and I eagerly accepted.

Five inks were released:

Sydney Darling Harbour – a soft, dusty, muted light green

Cosmic Swirl – a bright light purple

Ocean – a bright aqua blue

Australian Opal Grey – a complex light grey with blue undertones

Blood Crimson – a light orange toned red

These are the first Robert Oster inks I’ve used (yes I know I’m behind the times), so I haven’t had enough experience with these yet to tell you how they perform. My first impressions are that these particular colours are a bit washed out and not as pigmented as some of their other inks, but I’ll do full reviews of these down the track. When I initially swatched the inks, I thought my favourite was Cosmic Swirl, but once the inks have dried down, Sydney Darling Harbour and Australian Opal Grey looks so much more complex, so I’m keen to test those out first.

Materials used: 

Chiyogami Bound Tomoe River Notebooks

Swisspers Cotton Buds