Birmingham – Jeff Goldblum Independence Gray

[crahptacular]

Birmingham – Jeff Goldblum Independence Gray

 

The Birmingham Pen Co.’s line of inks (30 colors at the time of writing) feature various colors based on or inspired by notable locations or people associated with its home city of Pittsburgh, PA. I bought their sampler pack, and plan on slowly going through the whole line of inks, though I expect it will take me quite a while. For those interested, I posted some color swatches in a different topic (https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/328952-birmingham-pen-co-ink-swatches/) where you can get a quick idea of what the whole line looks like together.

 

Independence Gray (you have no idea how embarrassingly long it took me to see the pun there) is a relatively neutral dark grey ink. The hue is perhaps slightly towards the blue/purple side, but to my eye there is very little of any undertone in its regular writing appearance. I would say it’s neutral, but if I had to choose, I’d call it cool rather than warm. When washed (and in chromatography tests, I’d expect) the ink has noticeable components—a pinkish/reddish dye and a turquoise/blueish on, with the redder one tending to settle onto the page and the bluer one tending to float on the surface towards the edges, allowing for slight variation in color. Compared to other greys I’ve used, it’s on the darker side. I’d say it’s nearly as dark as Noodler’s Black, though it fades to grey instead of to the brownish hue of Noodler’s Black. It’s slightly bluer and noticeably darker than Lexington Gray, but much less blue than Fuyu-Syogun. In terms of writing properties, behavior was middling—not noticeably dry/wet, not a lot of shading. I don’t have any strong feelings towards this color—it doesn’t excite me, but neither is it unpleasant.

 

Flow/Lubrication: Moderate

Shading: Low

Sheen: None

Water Resistance: Low

 

 

The following sample was done with a Pilot Elite (Extra Fine) and a Lamy LX (Broad) on Tomoe River (68gsm, white, loose-leaf). Doodle was done with a Kuretake Menso brush (Small). Flex writing was done with a Leonardt 30 dip nib.

 

Inaccurate Image(s) Disclaimer: I couldn’t quite get the hue right on this one. The scan is overall a little too blue/purple—the actual color only has a little undertone to it. The comparison inks are relatively accurate. I think differences in monitors will probably magnify these inaccuracies, too (when I move the image to my other monitor, it has a bit of a strange green tint?) so I hope I don’t end up misleading anyone!

 

Scan:

 

Photo: No photo this time. My phone isn’t cooperating with my computer and I’m having trouble transferring files.

 

 

Comparison inks from left to right (big smear is the featured ink):

L’Artisan Pastellier Callifolio Gris de Payne, Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-Syogun, Noodler’s Lexington Gray, Noodler’s Black, Sailor Kiwa-Guro

 

Writing Samples (scans; some color correction; papers of increasing absorbency), from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

 

Maruman Mnemosyne:

 

Tsubame Fool’s University:

 

Franklin-Christoph:

Edited January 21, 2018 by crahptacular

[crahptacular]

I just realized that I used the wrong set of images (I had made several different attempts at color correction, and uploaded one of the failed attempts by mistake). I've edited the original post to replace them.

[visvamitra]

Cool.

[Aysedasi]

Very cool indeed!

[namrehsnoom]

Awesome pic of Fly-man. And a nice neutral grey too.

[ENewton]

Another nice one. Thank you.

[Chrissy]

Thank you for the review. What a great picture! I have a soft spot for Jeff Goldblum.

[inkstainedruth]

You are a bad bad person, crahptacular. You do these lovely drawings that make me want to buy more ink....

Thanks for the review. And not....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Tas]

Corking review as always. Perhaps a little book of these is on the horizon for you ?

[crahptacular]

Corking review as always. Perhaps a little book of these is on the horizon for you ?

 

Haha, I have all of my reviews thus far collected in a pile. I don't know that they're worthy of making a book... but it's fun to flip through them occasionally and observe things like how long it took me to start figuring out how brushes work (though that's still a work in progress) It's like keeping a journal, in a way.

 

 

You are a bad bad person, crahptacular. You do these lovely drawings that make me want to buy more ink....

Thanks for the review. And not....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

You have my sincere apologies

[lapis]

Nice review and awesome sketch of an interesting grey. For me, aubergine sounds good for a naming of the offside effect.

[rudyhou]

this is a nice shade of grey. rather vintage-like. me like

[tropicalwitch]

Wow, I suddenly need more grey ink...

Great review, awesome portrait. The very dark color is appealing, even more so with those great washes on your drawing.

Only slightly related, but your swatch of Noodler's Lexington Gray almost looked like graphite pencil!

[dragorsi]

I was waiting for this review, although probably just for the pure joy of it, this ink had me at the name Can't wait to get myself a bottle, hopefully during this summer. I was hoping for a little more shading, but it's not bad, at least it has some.

Awesome drawing!

[gorneaux]

What an absolutely fantastic sketch, and a great review.

Curious, though—in your swatches, Lexington Gray looks lighter than Fuyu Syogun. I have both and Fuyu Syogun is definitely lighter than Lex Gray. Maybe it's the particular way the swatch has shaded?

[Bhavna]

Gorgeous grey and I do like Goldblum! Thank you for such a comprehensive review.

[ethernautrix]

Amazing review. There certainly are some very talented ink reviewers on fpn! I no longer come for the inks but for the reviews (curiosity piqued by interesting ink names).

 

Great sketch of Jeff Goldblum and lovely writing samples.