February 2025

This season had me feeling really wet and also missing my morning rides out to Golden Gardens. These were the inspirations behind the Salish Sea set. This is included in the Deluxe boxes. Each set includes Salish fountain pen ink and three watercolors - Giant Pacific Octopus, Otter & Seal. 
The set also includes line drawings of the three animals by my incredibly skilled co-workers, Kaylyn Chileen and Mx. Morgan. 
The drawings are on Mixed Media paper so you can use paint, ink or other coloring media like colored pencils or markers. 

The Salish fountain pen ink is included in the Ink and Deluxe boxes. I went into this ink with two goals - make an Ultramarine-like blue, and try to get a sheen. It took longer than expected and my hands are still a little blue, but I love the result. If you're writing with this or just doing line work, it's a lovely royal blue. But if you lay the color on thick with a brush, you get complex sheening and lot of sparkle. I'm really excited to explore this more and you can bet there will be more inks with sheen soon.

The watercolors are included in the Deluxe and Paint boxes. It started with Seal. I was actually trying to recreate an old color that doesn't have a formula record, Wet Sand. If you were lucky enough to get one of the few caps of this color, you'll understand why I've been trying to recreate it since. The color was inspired by the Golden Gardens beach and had a blue with a sparkly brown. I could tell that my experiment wasn't going in the right direction, but the color was reminding me of something else - seals! After that, Otter was easy. I was stuck on the last animal to include until I remembered that I had a fluorescent orange pigment that I hadn't used. I instantly thought of the Giant Pacific Octopus. And so the trio of new watercolors was done. 

The rest of the Inks from the Ink Box!

Nuke Mutant is a special request from Push/Pull partner and my spouse, Seth Goodkind. I asked if he had any color requests and he said neon yellow and call it 'Nuke Mutant'. Request fulfilled. What the photo doesn't capture well is the deeper orange that this color gets when layered on thickly. It also has a subtle greenish sparkle. 

Shamrock! 
Every year I do a new green in March for St. Patrick's Day and I decided to add a green ink to the tradition. I haven't made a decision yet on whether this will stick around post-spring equinox. 
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All Colors Are Beautiful!

What happens to the last little bit of ink that doesn't get bottled? We put it in a jar labeled 'ACAB' (for All Colors are Beautiful, obviously). This jar used to fill up slowly and I'd have enough ink for a few bottles every month. But as ink sales have gone up, this jar gets full quickly. I decided we should bottle up this every-changing mystery color for everyone to enjoy. The bathces are labeled so you won't accidentally buy one you already have. This first batch is so beautiful, I wish it could be around forever! This color doesn't get swatched on the labels, so you'll just have to trust us that All colors are beautiful. 

Bonus Ink Stone from the past. An underappreciated color that I love using - Brimsone. This is a very vibrant yellow. I use it in my pieces when I want it to look like there is bright sunlight. 

That's it for Feburary's box. I hope you enjoy it and will sign up again for March & beyong!

​Maxx Follis-Goodkind