niponica

2024 NO.36

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All Things Pen and Paper in Japan

4


Gratifying Color Play

An ink lab where customers can create their own unique colors of ink. Children and adults alike hooked on multicolored oil pastels. These are just two examples of the insatiable fascination with drawing and painting that has given rise to the Japanese passion for color.

Photos: Arai Akiko

Inkstand is on the second floor of the stationery store, Kakimori. Courteous staff take good care of customers.

Create one-of-a-kind colors: Inkstand

There is a stationery store in the Kuramae neighborhood, near Asakusa, one of Tokyo’s most popular tourist destinations, that is home to Inkstand, an ink lab offering exclusive bespoke goods.

Customers choose from a total of 18 colors—original inks in 14 colors, as well as red, blue, and black, plus a thinning solution—mixing their own formula, using a dropper to add the inks one drop at a time to a beaker. Customers record the colors and number of drops used as the inks are added, then Inkstand staff use this formula to mix the one-of-a-kind color and bottle it in a special ink bottle. This service grew out of numerous requests from customers for greater variety of colors and particular intermediate shades of certain colors of the specially formulated inks the stationary store had begun selling.

Initially, the store offered dye inks which, though water-soluble so that they are easily absorbed by paper, tend to bleed and have quick-fading color, which were problems. For the solution, Inkstand placed a special order with an ink manufacturer to develop a unique pigment ink not commonly used with writing implements. This resulted in optimal inks that deliver long-lasting vivid color without clogging the pen nib.

Generally, no more than three colors of ink should be mixed together. Any more than that and the ink turns black and muddy. To give a color fluorescent vibrancy, a thinning solution is added. Mixing specific hues and shades is a process of trial-and-error that results an utterly unique color with a subtle nuance not found in commercial products. Inkstand has gained a reputation as a memorable travel experience and is now a stationery destination that attracts fans from all over the world.

Customers formulate their own unique inks, testing them with a dip pen to check as they mix colors. Right: An original, one-of-a-kind ink is bottled.

Learn to draw color: Oil Pastels

Oil pastels are the most popular art medium for young children in Japan. Of the many products available, oil pastels developed by a particular Osaka-based art materials manufacturer with a long history have been a staple for Japanese children for over 100 years. The secret to their popularity is that they combine the hard, non-sticky, and easy to handle characteristics of crayons with the soft, easy-to-blend coverage that you get with pastels.

Oil pastels are made of pigment, wax, and liquid oil. Pigment is added to melted wax, and liquid oil is added. The mixture is then kneaded, poured into a stick mold, and left to cool and harden. In 2011, to celebrate its 90th anniversary, the popular oil pastel company commemorated the occasion by releasing 700 different colors. In developing the release, color artisans from the company’s research institute created about 2,100 colors, paying meticulous attention to creating a uniform gradation of shades for adjacent colors. Since the difference between this many colors is difficult for the naked eye to discern, and the lineup was narrowed down to a third of the original total.

Another aspect of the art materials created for children is that they use the traditional Japanese names for colors, which are derived from nature, in order to teach children about color. For example, bright orange oil pastels are called daidai, which comes from the Japanese name for a bitter orange citrus fruit. The dull reddish yellow known as russet is named kuchibairo for its similarity to the color of fallen autumn leaves. In doing this, Japanese children unconsciously experience their culture through color.

Left: Cray-Pas are made from both natural and synthetic pigments. Right: Cutting away the overflow of mixture from the molds at the factory. The scraps are then added back to the mixture to make more oil pastels.
Photos: SAKURA COLOR PRODUCTS CORPORATION

Cray-Pas® oil pastels developed by Sakura Color Products Corporation. The name Cray-Pas is a nod to the fact that they combine the characteristics of crayons and pastels.

Cray-Pas® in 700 colors stored in an acrylic case. The subtle differences in the colors were achieved thanks to the discriminating eye of the company’s researchers, who blended the pigments by hand. Photos: SAKURA COLOR PRODUCTS CORPORATION