My bottle of Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Green has been in my art toolkit for a long time. It has finally succumbed to the ravages of time, and I have feelings about it!
It all started when…
Really, this story began in childhood. I stood in a stationery store, and saw on the shelf a bottle of ink with a graphic of a pelican on it. It had an eyedropper top, and written in german and english: drawing ink. It became mine, and a lifelong love of pen and ink drawing and hand-lettering was ignited.
Fast forward to college, and I am majoring in visual art with a focus in painting and printmaking. I want liquid ink to draw, paint and do lettering with, and the local art supply has my childhood favorite brand: Pelikan.
My History with the Color Green
Emerald green, grass green, saturated and vivid and also containing depth. Smallest me was smitten from the start. Whatever it was, I wanted the GREEN version. Green became a way for me to feel like myself, especially as I traversed the treacherous waters of teen-hood, an act of resistance to the myriad volleys of pressure to be like others instead.
Back to our story
So I’m there in the art store looking at the inks and I can only buy one. It’s obvious, I have to have the green. It’s Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Green, and I don’t even notice the lovely graphic of the fountain pen on it. I use it for drawing, painting and lettering and it has a place of honor in my “daily carry” art toolbox.
Over the years as I am working to earn a living and experience changes of life focus and activity, I don’t use it as often. It’s about half full when I rekindled my love of fountain pens and got my ink and realized “this is actually FOUNTAIN PEN ink” and how did I ever not notice that???
It goes into my pen ink rotation and I will say that it does really nicely in those amazing pelikan nibs!
Welp, the other day random.org decided it should be the ink in my pen. (Because I have an ink spreadsheet and use the random number generator to pick the ink to use, of course, that’s normal). I got it out of the box, and as usual when my ink bottles get low, looked inside before I filled my pen. And there it was, the dreaded flotilla of mold on top of the emerald sea! I was awash in sadness for the end of an era, but then also respect for the lifetime era this ink bottle has had.
It is not just a bottle of ink to me, clearly. It is a liquid expression of a feeling of “myself”, and I am glad for it.