Beautiful Ink, Beautiful Bottle...

Lovely octagonal bottles

I first saw Rubinato ink in a calligraphy book and I have to admit, it was love at first bottle sighting.

The octagonal shape of this bottle is so unique and so European. The colors range from violets to blues to green, sepia, black etc.

For my part, I use the ink with a paint brush as I am not a very good calligrapher, but I have used them with dip pens too. Every three years or so I get the idea that I'm going to really buckle down and learn how to produce beautiful calligraphy lettering.

Just some of the colors in the Rubinato line.

Viola, Rosso....

And then, every three years, I try for an hour or so and realize it's much harder than it looks. Still, even if my calligraphy isn't a perfect example of Spencerian or copperplate, it's still charming in its imperfection. Or at least, more charming than a typed out note.

Rubinato inks come from Italy, and don't they have an old world Italian look?
Sometimes you buy something just for the packaging and hope the product inside is just as good.

Rubinato color sample chips...please note that the 'Rubinato Ink' text is not an example of my calligraphy, that was just a quick jot with a brush (not that my calligraphy is much better).

That was the case here, because I knew I wanted a bottle of this ink the second I saw the bottle. As it happened we ended up importing it and now sell a small selection on Amazon. They're a bit expensive because the shipping from overseas is expensive. But I'm going to guess that many of the people that buy Rubinato are like me and buying it for more than just the ink.

And the ink is lovely, btw.