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Viseguy
May 25 2008, 04:06 PM
This exchange -- on the recurring subject of whether Noodler's Aircorp Blue-Black is really a green-black -- came up in an [acronym="Off Topic"]OT[/acronym] digression in another forum. I thought I'd quote it here, where it's on-topic, to make it more accessible to searches:

QUOTE(Viseguy @ May 24 2008, 10:42 PM) [snapback]621240[/snapback]
...By the bye, I just ran across this from Nathan, responding to the commonly-held notion that Aircorp Blue-Black is, at bottom, green:

QUOTE(Eternally Noodling @ Sep 28 2007, 08:50 PM) [snapback]381549[/snapback]
QUOTE(saintsimon @ Sep 27 2007, 06:24 PM) [snapback]380529[/snapback]
There's also Noodler's Aircorp Blue-Black, which is, as confirmed by me and other owners, actually a Green-Black.

Put it on filter paper...it is a "prime black" and a "prime bright blue"...NOTHING else....no yellow....no green.... The color can play tricks on the perception the eye believes is there...

On this I can't comment, as I've just received -- but haven't yet opened -- my sample of Aircorp B-B from Pear Tree Pens. Now I'm curious....

(Later...) I did a paper towel test (see scan), and it bears out QM2's comments below. Interesting.



Apologies for sidetracking the thread.


QUOTE(QM2 @ May 25 2008, 05:14 AM) [snapback]621416[/snapback]
I recently bought the Aircorp Blue-Black and came to the same conclusion: It is not really green, just seems that way. Speaking in terms of painters' pigments, it is like a Cerulean Blue mixed with Paynes Gray (which is called "gray" but is in fact a black). The combination creates an illusion of a green tint, when in fact no green pigment is there. When you mix a blue black using a different blue pigment, like Cobalt or Ultramarine, the result looks more of what we tend to think of as "blue-black". From what I've sen, standard blue inks by most manufacturers are based on Cobalt and Ultramarine, not on Cerulean blue, so people might simply not be used to that pigment and interpret it as "greenish".

In my experiences with it, Aircorp Blue-Black shows off best in a pen that makes ink look lighter, not darker. I have a Montblanc Fitzgerald, which does this -- makes any ink look considerably lighter -- and it shows off Aircorp Blue-Black as a very interesting, nuanced colour.

Back to the original "Americana" question...

QM2

QM2
May 25 2008, 05:00 PM
QUOTE(Viseguy @ May 25 2008, 04:06 PM) [snapback]621639[/snapback]
(Later...) I did a paper towel test (see scan), and it bears out QM2's comments below. Interesting.


Oh! Wow, how cool -- I didn't do a test, I was just speculating visually. But the two separated colours definitely look like a Paynes Gray and a light Cerrulean Blue. Thanks for doing that Viseguy.

I've been using inks lately to paint instead of watercolour, and this has actually helped me a great deal with devising interesting mixes with oil paints as well. I've been trying to replicate certain Noodler's and Herbin colours in oil, by trying to understand what are the pigments that actually comprise them. So far, I can make a good Antietam (Venetian Red with just a bit of Cadmium), obviously Aircorp Blue-Black, and a few others!

QM2
excarnate
May 25 2008, 09:50 PM
It doesn't matter if the components are green or not, or have compents that normally add up to green, what matters is what they look like together. It seems from the pictures pretty clear it is green-black, not blue-black.

I like Noodler's inks, or at least I buy a lot of them, but far too many have a green tinge to them (I'm looking at you, Legal Lapis!).
QM2
May 25 2008, 09:55 PM
QUOTE(excarnate @ May 25 2008, 09:50 PM) [snapback]621874[/snapback]
It doesn't matter if the components are green or not, or have compents that normally add up to green, what matters is what they look like together. It seems from the pictures pretty clear it is green-black, not blue-black.

I like Noodler's inks, or at least I buy a lot of them, but far too many have a green tinge to them (I'm looking at you, Legal Lapis!).



Hi excarnate,

could you point me to the pictures where you think it looks green? Do you mean on the ink reviews? I am curious to see if your interpretation of the same sample differs from mine.

Thanks,
QM2



excarnate
May 26 2008, 06:18 PM
QUOTE(QM2 @ May 25 2008, 04:55 PM) [snapback]621881[/snapback]
could you point me to the pictures where you think it looks green? Do you mean on the ink reviews? I am curious to see if your interpretation of the same sample differs from mine.

Yes, the ink reviews, but for the Legal Lapis I mean the bottle we got. We got a sampler, it appears to be labeled correctly but is darker and much less green (the sender said it was a several years old bottle). We are attempting to let our (large) bottle air out to see if that at least makes is darker as my wife really likes the color of the sampler.

PM me and I'll send you a vial with some Legal Lapis if you like. As far as the blue-black I've found the perfect blue-black and will send you some hand-written samples and you can at least see what blue-black means to me.

As far as the reviews, I have my screen calibrated and have good light, but I realize there is not beginning to end calibration except with the new reviews with the neutral gray borders and the embedded profile.

I may be able to get a sample in trade of the Aircorp and then we can see if I was speaking without knowing :-)
CharlieB
May 27 2008, 01:37 AM
When I look at the paper towel test shown above, I see a very turquoise-blue.... in other words, a blue with a lot of green components. Perhaps that explains the greenish appearance of Aircorps ink.

I have also heard that Noodlers Black contains a yellow component. When Noodlers Black is mixed with any blue ink, the yellow combines with the blue to produce green.

I see green when I look at Aircorps.
RLTodd
May 27 2008, 04:40 AM
Hmmmm.......... Cerrulian........... That is a a blue - green............ hmmmmm............bit of yellow in the black.......... hmmm............. all very interesting..........

When I look at it as I write on white paper or the slight pink tint of Clairfontane it still looks like green tinted black...... Maybe I have defective color vision and that cause the perception, I don't know......... it still looks like green tinted black...............
HDoug
May 27 2008, 09:14 AM
Everyone's color perception varies, of that I'm sure. To me, Aircorps was a really strange dark green tinged black. It made me ill to look at it -- as though I was being forced to stare into florescent lights on a hangover -- and I gave the bottle away. The only other ink that struck me in such a negative way was Lermontov, which made me feel like I was chewing on a softball sized glob of bubblegum.

Doug
Deirdre
May 27 2008, 09:19 AM
QUOTE(HDoug @ May 27 2008, 02:14 AM) [snapback]623215[/snapback]
Everyone's color perception varies, of that I'm sure. To me, Aircorps was a really strange dark green tinged black. It made me ill to look at it -- as though I was being forced to stare into florescent lights on a hangover -- and I gave the bottle away. The only other ink that struck me in such a negative way was Lermontov, which made me feel like I was chewing on a softball sized glob of bubblegum.

Wow. I love Lermontov!
HDoug
May 27 2008, 09:51 AM
QUOTE(Deirdre @ May 26 2008, 11:19 PM) [snapback]623216[/snapback]
Wow. I love Lermontov!


Write me a letter about why you love Lermontov -- the ink, the writer, or anything else, for that matter -- send it to me along with the correct postage (I think I have a padded pouch-type mailer somewhere) and an almost untouched bottle of Lermontov will appear at the designated address.

Doug
Deirdre
May 27 2008, 10:01 AM
HDoug, will do!

I've only ever had a sample of it. When it got thin, I mixed it with a sample of Saguaro.
girlieg33k
May 27 2008, 10:05 AM
QUOTE(excarnate @ May 25 2008, 05:50 PM) [snapback]621874[/snapback]
. . . far too many have a green tinge to them (I'm looking at you, Legal Lapis!).

Yep. In varying degrees, Legal Lapis, Aircorp, Tahitian Pearl, and Ellis Island all have a green tinge (at least to me). After mixing blues and blacks (from other brands), I've noticed that a green tinge seems to occur when mixing the two colours. One way to remove the green tinge is to add a bit of violet coloured ink into the mix.

Simonrob had a great post on mixing blue-blacks. (Sorry don't have the link handy, but have a look-see through his posts.) If memory serves, he was able to produce blue-blacks without any green tinge. I believe he also recommended mixing browns with blues, which produces an antique-looking blue-black without any green. I've been able to mix WM Havana Brown with either Florida Blue or Blue-Black with good results.
QM2
May 27 2008, 10:48 AM


Here is a very quick and crude sample of what Aircorp Blue Black looks like in a pen such as the MB Fitzgerald, which has a tendency to lighten inks. Here, the colur really does look like a classic cerulean blue + paynes gray mix.

For comparison, the colour below is the Pelikan (Cartridge) Blue Black, in a pen that does not make the colour either darker or lighter. This one looks more like a cobalt blue + paynes gray. Montblanc (Cartridge) Blue-Black looks similar to the Pelikan, but perhaps a bit heavier on the gray.

Using the vocabulary of artists' pigments, Aircorp Blue Black really does not have any green in it, even on this sample. Cerulean Blue is not a green, but one of three classic blue pigments : )

QM2


edit to add: the above is a daylight photo, not a scan.


NeoTiger
May 27 2008, 12:40 PM
From the paper blot shown above, I can see a black dot and a light blue colour, which is referred to as "prime bright blue". But I can also see some teal components on the paper between those two bits, and teal definitely has some green in it.

In QM2's scan of the writing sample, I think most would agree that the Aircorps appears "greener" than the Pelikan Blue-Black. It's simply a different hue, ignoring the saturation of the ink. Using a colour picker on QM2's image, I can definitely pick out many pixels of the Aircorps writing that has green components, while the Pelikan blue-black is much more grey with slight blue tint. I know the scanner can affect the ways colour is represented digitally, but at least this tells us Aircorps is greener than Pelikan.
JJBlanche
Jun 25 2008, 04:37 PM
I'm not going to argue what the true, objective color of Aircorp B-B is, but from someone that has it, and has used it, it does indeed look like a black that shades green. The green isn't in your face, but I asked four separate people, under four different types of lighting, "What does the lighter color in this ink look like," and every single one said green.

As has been mentioned, it doesn't really matter what the component colors are, but how they work together, and what they look like on the page, optical illusion or not.
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