How Green Is Your Vg Starry Night?

[kronos77]

I am hearing different things about van Gogh Starry Night and how green this blue is. I really don;t see it as a greenish blue but rather a neutral, almost primary blue. One person thought it actually leaned a bit violet. This probably varies by pen, paper and light but I would like to hear people's observations.

[LizEF]

I only have a sample, gifted by a fellow FPNer, so I don't know how old / new it may be. From some of Brian Goulet's videos, it seems that it's normal (and intentional) for Noodler's inks to vary a little from batch to batch (though that may only be for the bulletproof inks).

 

Anywho, I don't have it in a pen, but just used a dip pen with FP nib to test it, and it's blue. (And inks which others say are blue with a slight green, or a blue-teal, I say are green or green-teal, so if there were green in there, I'm pretty sure my eyes would pick it up.)

 

I've looked at it under a daylight bulb, florescent lighting (not sure its temp), and an "I don't know what" bulb, and it's always blue. When I look at it with the LED lights in my Goulet Pens loupe, it looks like there might be the vaguest hint of purple in there somewhere, but I suspect that's the loupe - under its lighting, everything is more blue.

 

Anywho, to me, it looks like a (faded) dark blue or like some blue-blacks, depending on how much ink the nib puts down. But no green, and any purple could be lighting or imagination.

 

Note: My test was only on 24lb HP LaserJet paper.

[jmccarty3]

To sum up, Starry Night is a typical Blue-Black with a greenish cast. This is "historically accurate" for Blue-Black inks. Look elsewhere if you seek dark blues, or blue blacks without green.

[WhosYerBob]

To sum up, Starry Night is a typical Blue-Black with a greenish cast. This is "historically accurate" for Blue-Black inks. Look elsewhere if you seek dark blues, or blue blacks without green.

1+ on this for me.

 

The base color definitely skews dark greenish hue with the two bottles I have.

[mhguda]

My experience mirrors LizEFs - there might be a hint of purple there (now that it's been mentioned) but otherwise this to me is deep dark blue, with no green in it at all. I have two bottles, btw, although only one opened, so I guess the second one does not (yet) count... but it's the dedicated ink for my Fosfor Syringe Filler, and on numerous papers it's been deep, dark blue, period.

[amberleadavis]

Here it is the wettest pen I own on the worst possible paper.

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Colors/Blue/slides/2014-Ink_160.jpg

[inkstainedruth]

Here it is the wettest pen I own on the worst possible paper.

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Colors/Blue/slides/2014-Ink_160.jpg

 

Wow. That looks (on my screen, anyway) a lot like the original sample I had of Noodler's 54th Massachusetts (but what came out of the full bottle of 54th MA I got was a lot lighter and bluer).

Kronos77, if you want something a bit less green leaning, have a look at Noodler's Ellis Island Blue Black (exclusive to Fountain Pen Hospital in NYC). My bottle (which I picked up right before New Year's Eve) is almost black with only a whiff of blue -- and if there's any green I'm not seeing it. It's pretty water resistant, doesn't have an excessively long dry time, and -- even though it's very saturated -- does not appear to have any problems (at least so far, after a couple of refills) with clogging or hard starts (I have it a Safari with an F nib and it seems pretty well behaved; it's not the wettest ink on the planet, but it's not super dry either).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth