Ferris Wheel Press is a design and stationery company based in Markham, Ontario, Canada. They have been making fine stationery products for over 10 years now, constantly seeking innovation and refinement. I never tried their inks, and only knew them from their iconic round bottles. So, I decided to add a small bottle to a recent order, and went for this green Emerald Gardens. This is an ink from their 2024 FerriTales collection – an interpretation of the story of the Beauty and the Beast. The box pictures the princess’s rose garden, a reference to Emerald Gardens’ green colour with its green & gold shimmer.
Emerald Gardens is at heart a beautifully executed leaf-green that looks fresh and young, like newly born leaves on a tree in early spring. I absolutely love the colour and the way it breathes life and growth and joy. Emerald Gardens makes a great first impression! That green colour not only looks fantastic, but it’s also nicely saturated and shows some impressive shading (strong but not too harsh). The ink works well with both white and cream-coloured paper and can even cope with the lower quality papers in my test set. This is an ink that has all its bases covered.
I’m totally not into shimmer, but in this case, I must admit that the shimmer combines nicely with the ink. The choice of green & gold particles works well … it’s not an obtrusive shimmer, and it adds a dimension of vibrancy to the base ink colour. For this review I didn’t shake the bottle and used shimmer-less ink in my pens (I still only trust the full-shimmer experience with my dip pens).
Emerald Gardens has a fairly small colour range, with not too much contrast between light and dark parts. The lighter parts still have good contrast & saturation, meaning that the ink will work well with dry pens and fine nibs. This is an ink that cooperates nicely with any pen. Also the small saturation span translates to softer shading. With Emerald Gardens, the shading is very much there, but remains well balanced and never looks harsh. Top marks for this ink!
On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – there is a fair amount of smearing, but the text itself remains perfectly readable. The bottom part of the chromatography suggests that the ink can survive fluid attacks, but sadly that is not the case. Water resistance is all but non-existent: all that lovely green disappears; only a faint grey ghost of your writing remains that can be deciphered if you have a degree in cryptography. Not an ink to use if water resistance is on your list of requirements.
I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap of paper I show you:
- An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip
- 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
- An ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain pen
- The name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nib
- A small text sample, written with the M-nib Safari
- The source of the quote, written with a Lamy Dialog 3 with M-nib
- Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari)
Ferris Wheel Press Emerald Gardens handles all papers well, even the crappy ones. With low quality paper there is just the tiniest amount of feathering (if you look really hard). Even Moleskine paper is handled very well, with only a touch of bleed-through. This ink looks lovely on both white and cream paper, which is quite a feat. Drying times are surprisingly short at about the 10-15 second mark, even on Japanese paper. As a writing ink, this Emerald Gardens gets top marks.
Scans and photos can show different aspects of an ink, which is why I usually present them both. Below you’ll find a scan of writing samples on a selection of the papers used. My scanner exaggerated the contrast a lot, and renders the green much too light-coloured. The photos are definitely more realistic.
Below you’ll find some zoomed-in parts of writing samples. It shows e.g. the really good quality of this ink on Moleskine paper. You can also see that the shading is quite heavy, but due to the soft contrast between light and dark parts the shading remains aesthetically pleasing. It definitely brings the best out of your fountain pen. Again, this is really well executed. I’m usually not a fan of heavy shaders, but Emerald Gardens shows that heavy shading can look fabulous if the contrast is just right.
Writing with different nib sizes
The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing. Emerald Gardens looks good in all nib sizes. With the EF nib, contrast and saturation are impressive and the writing is crisp and clear. You even get some of that lovely shading. With wet pens, the ink gets more saturated, but retains that fresh and vibrant youthful look. This is an ink that can handle any pen/nib combination with ease.
Related inks
To compare “Emerald Gardens” with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. Diamine Emerald comes close in colour but is more subdued. The Ferris Wheel Press ink has a bit more vibrancy, and looks more lively to me.
Inkxperiment – Soulmates
With every review I try to do a single-ink drawing that shows what the ink is capable of in a more artistic setting. The most fun part of the ink review, and I quite enjoy brainstorming and then implementing these little pieces.
This is the second drawing in a new series – “Counting … one TWO three”. So this is number two – a simple scene with two trees and two persons. In this case, a chance encounter in the park where two strangers meet – the start of a long friendship. Life is good!
For this inkxperiment I started with a piece of A4 HP photo paper. I covered the sun, and used some cotton make-up swabs to paint in the sky. I then used a dip pen and painted in the main parts of the trees using pure ink. For the finer branches, I simply used my fountain pen. I finally added the boy and girl walking in the park. The small dog is just a little extra: in my mind, the boy is walking his dog, and encounters the girl. “Such a cute doggie” … the conversation gets started, and the friendship begins. I enjoyed using “Emerald Gardens” for drawing, and this inkxperiment shows well what can be achieved with this ink in a more artistic context.
Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper.
For this computational derivation, I kept it really simple. All I did was applying an urban art filter to the original drawing (the same one as in the previous picture in this series). I like the colour scheme of this one as well.
Conclusion
Ferris Wheel Press Emerald Gardens is a great green. Good looks: vibrant & youthful, a joy to write with. On a technical level the ink is near perfect: it can handle any combination of pen, nib and paper. A well-crafted ink! This is my first encounter with the brand – if all their inks are as good as this one, I’m sure that I will explore more of them. This Emerald Gardens gets top marks from me. It’s hard to go wrong with it.
Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib
Backside of writing samples on different paper types
[Originally published on the Fountain Pen Network, on 28 April 2024]
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