Some Blues & Greens (For Spring?)

[pgcauk]

Bluebells, forget-me-nots & periwinkles?

I must admit I have never really used blue ink - if I'm going to spend this much money on the stuff I'd rather stand out a bit (nothing ostentatious mind, all, hopefully, in good taste!), but it's really been creeping into my palette this Spring. I rather like this "dappled woodland" look! For me though, there aren't many blues that make a mark used individually, but in combinations like this you can start to see the nuances?
Here's a version with the words alongside:

"Soft Snow" = of Australia = Robert Oster Summer Storm (works for me as a Winter ink!)

The numbers are Kobe's

Full Birmingham titles:

Allegheny Courthouse Justice Blue

Allegheny Observatory Celestial Blue (here in a super extra-fine nib - actually a dark blue a la "Sherlock Holmes"?)

Rachael Carson Silent Spring (but I prefer "Rachel's Silence"!)

[pgcauk]

If you look at the Ostwald Color Circle (1916), blue and greens take up 50% of the color space. This seems fair to me as it allows a balance between "cool" (resolve grey) and "warm" (resolve brown) colors. In our naming of colors however, we give more distinctions to the warm side - which carries both more history (?) and urgency - than the calmer blues and greens, which could almost all be seen as one color from blue-violet through to blue-green.

I wonder if, in the future, will we develop a greater vocabulary for this territory?

Cool: Violet - Blue - Green

Warm: Green - Yellow - Orange - Red - Purple

I guess if we add in the (rather popular in ink circles) Teal and Blurple, all would be fair, but we do need a better nomenclature for "Blurple"! (and to split green into cool and warm iterations?!?).

[pgcauk]

Oh, I just checked my Ostwald. In a 24 color circle he has eight sets of three:

Warm; Yellow - Orange - Red - Purple

Cool; Blue - Turquoise - Seagreen - Leafgreen

Go Ostwald!

[pgcauk]

. . . . so if we take Ostwald's 24 color circle and take the half that would be filed under Blue/Green and then divide that into six groups of two rather than four groups of three, we arrive at the following, which I find much easier to manage:

 

So: Yellow Green - Green - Blue Green - Green Blue - Blue - Blue Violet (each of these would have two colors under Ostwald, one tending in each direction).

. . . . and here's an earlier version where the boundary colors are a green (Kobe Olive) and a violet (Scabiosa - writes bluish and dries reddish!) that are "just" warm, and wove together a whole bunch of "cool" colors in between. (Not sure now if there was any more to my method than that! - edit: looks like the columns run violet through green while the rows are "true" blues - which is warp and which is weft again? Columns = warp I reckon! . . . .Yup! and the lower box would be warp = green, weft = violet without the blues involved - phew!)

. . . I'm just thinking out loud here - not sure it properly belongs on an ink comparisons forum or a color theory forum (where are those?) . . . or whether I just shouldn't venture out of my hermit cave!

Edited April 20, 2019 by pgcauk

[pgcauk]

Two more and I'm done (unless anyone asks for a response - valid options include "Please stop!")
I was wondering what the colors were in the "big weave" above and then I found this:

So all of those plus Moss, with Olive and Scabiosa as borders.

(n.b. Scanner be darned, both the Navy and Justice have a real violet cast, the Navy in particular has pink undertones that come out in the wash but are, apparently, invisible to photographic equipment! I tried a photo but that was useless too! Im not sure about Navy as a writing Ink (stil under evaluation), but for ink and wash it's quite something!)

And whilst I was rifling I found this from 2017, which isn't connected at all!

Goodnight!

Edited April 20, 2019 by pgcauk

[goodpens]

These are gorgeous! Thank you.

[VivaTerlingua]

Love the way you always present inks! If I didn't already have way too many blues, I would definitely look into getting the Courthouse Justice.

[pgcauk]

Love the way you always present inks! If I didn't already have way too many blues, I would definitely look into getting the Courthouse Justice.

Courthouse Justice is a curious customer! I want to love it but I'm not sure I've got there yet. It has the opposite trick to Herbin's Bleu Myosotis, whereas the Herbin writes blue and slowly ages to violet over a day or three, Courthouse Justice is the most gorgeous "Blurple" in the bottle, in my demonstrator barrel and fresh on the page, so to me there is a real disappointment factor when it dries a blue that might as well come from a biro . . . . unless that is just my blue prejudice kicking in?

The Birmingham Navy is similar (but darker) there is an amazing purple pink quality to the fresh ink that just disappears as it dries . . .

Worth checking out Crahptaculars reviews on the Birminghams.

With those two I feel like there is something quite special, I just haven't figured how best to get at it yet! (Actually I used the Navy in a Pilot Parallel 6.0 for some sympathy cards recently, and it came out just perfect).

Easier pleasures are the Rachel Carson = dirty cyan and George Ferris, which is a surprisingly pretty pale grey blue.

[pgcauk]

I'm not sure this isn't a bit ghoulish to share but anyways, I did like the color!! This is Birmingham Pens' USS Requin Navy Blue. (I tried "Waterfront Dusk" - what kind of egotist writes in purple ink!!*). To me this had the right balance for the occasion:

If I find something that shows off Courthouse Justice well, I'll get back to you!
(*well . . . I do use Scabiosa all the time - but that's not the same . . . ?)

Edited April 21, 2019 by pgcauk

[pgcauk]

Oy, you try and stop me!
Here's something that didn't quite work (I might get back to it), but overlooking its faults, it does show five Birmingham Blues in sequence: Navy - Ferris - Silence - Celestial - Justice

[Knitnlorie]

interesting, informative, and Beautiful! Thank you for this.

[amberleadavis]

Thank you. I love this.

[DrDebG]

Beautiful comparison! Thank you!

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting. I'm going to have to pull out my bottles of USS Requin and Waterfront Dusk. And Courthouse Justice must be a new one -- that looks quite nice. I'm also CLEARLY going to have to ink SOMETHING up with Robert Oster Moss (it's rapidly becoming one of my favorite greens).

I'm also going to have to read up on that Oswald Color Circle. (I love this site because I'm constantly learning about new things).

Thanks for the interesting color comparisons.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[amberleadavis]

I love these! Can you add them to the color threads too?