Please Help Me Choose A Dark Olive Green For Daily Use (Among Some Shortlisted Candidates)

[bizhe]

Wow, some fantastic samples from pgcaulk! Monteverde Green is similar to PR Avocado, and seems to be well received from what I read.

[pgcauk]

Isn't it funny, inks where I have spent hours pouring over reviews, testing samples and agonizing over the cost of importing from Japan tend to be stuck in the front of my consciousness, whereas something I picked up on a whim for $8 at the local store is easily forgotten!

The Monteverde certainly deserves a fair comparison in terms of the quality of the ink, rather than scarcity value!

[Penpulsar]

You seem to have been provided some nice options by the folks here. I wonder if a mix of a few drops of an Iroshizuku black with some Iro Chiku-Rin might also produce a suitable daily olivine ink ? Alas, I have no black with which to perform the experiment....

 

P2

[ErrantSmudge]

Wow, some fantastic samples from pgcaulk! Monteverde Green is similar to PR Avocado, and seems to be well received from what I read.

 

Be careful when naming and ordering. Monteverde makes several greens; they offer a "Monteverde Green" which is a dark pine green (it's actually their brand/logo color) and "Monteverde Olivine" which is the olive color similar to PR Avocado.

Edited March 6, 2019 by ErrantSmudge

[pgcauk]

Having exhausted my sample of Kobe #49 without reaching a firm conclusion, I took a punt on a full bottle; I knew it would be good for sketching at least, but was unsure as a writing ink, and knew I did not like the wash color (too piney-blue). After a week of daily use I am happy to report that I now consider this my "base" daily ink, which is not something I have had before (I have a system for moving through the color wheel in the course of a week, which I still plan to do, but as highlights and accents against this base 😀). It's a bit piney-green while wet, but dries to a nice muted grey which, while not hiding its green undertone, is pleasantly neutral and very easy on the eye.

I bought a bottle of Robert Oster Moss alongside, (to bulk up the order to qualify for free shipping 😉), another sample I had been dithering over for years. The Moss is a nice soft, dark green, but it absolutely stays under the green flag, whereas the Olive is neutral enough (without hiding) for use as a daily writer.

Worthy of a spin at least?

[pgcauk]

Chromantic,

 

I think these stretch any definition of "Olive", but if you like (or adore - which is perfectly valid!) Verde Muschiato, here it is with a couple of "Greenish Brown" neighbors, J.J.R. and Ricky Cha. I had to lighten this one a bit as the Muschiato came out a bit heavy handed!

[sparksflyup]

I love the R&K Alt-Goldgrun as a shade... so I do wonder if just a little darkening might make it the perfect candidate.

[chromantic]

Chromantic,

 

I think these stretch any definition of "Olive", but if you like (or adore - which is perfectly valid!) Verde Muschiato, here it is with a couple of "Greenish Brown" neighbors, J.J.R. and Ricky Cha. I had to lighten this one a bit as the Muschiato came out a bit heavy handed!

 

Agreed, it is more of a somewhat/lightly leaning thing but the closest to an olive I have.

[Purplecate]

Yep, been down this track too - and some gorgeous suggestions already above. I love KWZ Green Gold and Sailor Tokiwa-matsu. A couple or others you might sample if you get the chance are Blackstone's Australian Bush which is scented (top) and Monami's Olive - which I got originally in a disposable Monami Olika fountain pen but managed to track down a bottle as I liked it so much (bottom). The Monami Pen was from Amazon and only cost a few pounds - the ink colour is a little greener that this quick snap.

 

(Sorry, worked out how to add photos but not how to adjust colours - baby steps!)

[Bex26]

Ching,

I have been living with the same question, and spending quite a bit of money on it over the years. Not sure that I have the answer yet, but happy to share some of my exploring.

I'm going to write the narrative on this portable device and then add in some scans once I get to HQ.

My first attempt was KWZ IG Green #4, which is a lovely ink but much bluer than I was imagining (yet to try their Green Gold, the IG version looks particularly scrumptious!).

Next up was Diamine Salamander, which I was really excited about but didn't ring the bell for me. First experience of the subtlety of greens, shifting from green to brown with not just changes of nib and paper, but also the light you are reading by! Proton007 speaks the truth!

AltGoldGrun is a lovely drawing ink. I haven't used it for writing much.

Burma Road Brown was so exciting that I turned around and bought Safari too, but before I'd even given them a spin I started hearing about Tokiwa Matsu, and became so convinced that this would be "the one", that I forked out for that too!

I don't enjoy Tokiwa Matsu at all! It dries to a lovely color undisturbed, but in the bottle, freshly applied and (deal-breaker) with a wash applied it's again a blue "pine-green". I also discovered that sheen is not for me - I find the shiny red over olive green quite distracting!

I spent significant time and dollars exploring what I call "earth greens" and "stone greens", which is probably outside the territory here, but which did lead me to my beloved and no-longer-produced-under-this-label (I have written to Dr. Jansen to find out the new naming) De Atramentis Marone / Jean Jaques Rousseau, which I am including in the samples below.

Impressed by the Kobe inks #28 and #45, I have got to the end of my sample of #49, and committed to ordering a full bottle, without really resolving it's appeal;

Pros - nice sombre greyish green, great for sketching (without wash!), magnificent shading (= typical Kobe!).

Cons - bluer than I would expect from an olive, reminding me more of the foliage than a martini! As with Tokiwa Matsu, adding a wash brings out a blue-green dye rather than the inks regular color.

It's raining today, so I did a few more samples than I probably should have, but there were several delightful discoveries. Hopefully it's of some help!

Scans:

So here's what I was working on before I read this post - honest!

Here's what I would consider my top candidates;

. . . and, hey, it's raining, here's a few more, including the browner end and - oh, "Beginning Of Spring" is a beauty!

 

. . . still raining, here's some Greenish Browns:

. . . and here's some sketching - the water pot is #49 (wine glass BoS):

. . . . and, while the rain persists, some water pots from the archive (not necessarily olive, but all greenish):

. . . which are, in case anyone's interested; main sketch = Stipula Calamo Verde Muschiato, proceeding clockwise; Jean Jaques, Kobe Hachibuse Silhouette, KWZ Hunter Green, Rikyu Cha . . . .

. . . De Atramentis' Dark Reseda, Birmingham Pens' Fern Moss Green.

 

Phew! More than you asked for, but nice to have them all in one place?

[Bex26]

Where can I find that Beginnings of Spring? Loving that colour, it may be exactly what I was looking for!

[sombrueil]

Anyone have experience with Birmingham Pens Henry P. Ford Arugula?

https://www.birminghampens.com/collections/bottled-ink/products/birmingham-henry-p-ford-arugula-30ml

 

So far I have loved the few Birmingham inks I have tried.

[Barkingpig]

I bought it & have enjoyed using it; I have not had any issue with any of the Birmingham inks.

[pgcauk]

Where can I find that Beginnings of Spring? Loving that colour, it may be exactly what I was looking for!

 

"Beginning of Spring" is indeed both fabulous and obscure. I may even prefer it (sacrilege!) to AltGoldGrun as it has more of a brown front, with the green peeping through from behind. I will tell you all I know and wish you good luck - I would love to have more than this dear little bottle myself!

I purchased the ink at the 2018 Los Angeles Pen Show. I couldn't really make out a lot of what the vendor was saying (it included "PenBBS", "China" and "Korea") but he had some gorgeous swatches of several ink ranges that I spent quite a while pouring over. One of the ranges was "Ancient Charms" (possibly "Ancient Songs"?), which I have subsequently seen available through VanNess. I bought "Song of the Southern Village" and "Fisherman's Charm", which are both lovely and somewhat unique colors (Fisherman's is a legible pale blue!), but clearly established for me that I am not interested in glitter inks! The other range was "Solar Terms", a range of 24 numbered inks (as far as I remember) with six for each season. I bought two of these, "Beginning of Spring" and "Beginning of Summer" and both are excellent.

I saw the same vendor at this year's show and managed to swag a couple more bottles from a box of odds and ends, including a leaky bottle of a stunning "blurple"!) but he no longer had these ranges out front, so they may well have expired.

Once the bear wakes up I will edit this post to add a scan of the labels. Someone who can read Chinese might be able to move things further. I did inquire once at VanNess, but it might be worth doing so a bit more actively, or attempting to negotiate AliBaba?

Please do let me know if you get a positive result!

Good luck!

Edit: Here's dem labels

Edited May 16, 2019 by pgcauk

[pgcauk]

Anyone have experience with Birmingham Pens Henry P. Ford Arugula?

https://www.birminghampens.com/collections/bottled-ink/products/birmingham-henry-p-ford-arugula-30ml

 

So far I have loved the few Birmingham inks I have tried.

Sombrueil,

Yes, I had my eye on this for a while, but was waiting for a few others to join it in my interest pile to justify an order. Then I saw "Violet Starling" (and quite a few other inks) had sold out already, which put me in enough of a panic to order a bottle of Arugula alongside one of the remaining samples of the Starling.

I saw your post yesterday. Still on first impressions at this end, but this morning I made a simple comparison page to go with my initial tests. I will scan and post these below once the bear wakes up.

My initial impression was of "stewed greens", the kind of thing you might get in a school dinner where the greens have been boiled until all the life and nutrients have left (then they throw away the water, where any remaining goodness resides, or serve the dead stuff in a pool of nutrient water, which is not pleasant either!)! At first I couldn't think of a comparison, but once I had it in a pen (replacing Robert Oster's Bronze) I did remember dear old Salamander, so for this morning's comparison I lodged Arugula between the Diamines, Salamander and Safari, which are the closest I have I think. For good luck I threw in Fern Moss, as I know you have this already, and KWZ Rotten Green, which is not in the same zone at all, but has the best title. As a grand finale I decorated the border with KWZ's Hunter Green - an ink I need to keep returning to as it's just so baffling!

Impressions:

Salamander is bluer (although it can still look brown on some papers and under some lights) Safari is a bit more healthy looking - parched savannah rather than boiled to death! Fern Moss I would file under "Grey", with a subtle greenness. I like the "soft" look of Fern Moss (compared to say De Atramentis' Cement), but it is a bit too cool to have made it to my everyday palette. Arugula is of similar quality (a bit dry, a bit thin etc. - in line with other Birmingham inks [not a complaint, I really enjoy these less saturated colors]), but definitely in the Brown-Green rather than Grey-Green zone. (Rotten Green I consider turquoise, Hunter Green has yet to reveal any trace of green on any papers or under any light conditions, but is very handsome in the rinse water!)

I have a lot of Greenish Browns, Verde Muschiato, Robert Oster's Bronze, Rikyu Cha etc. but this seems to be distinct enough and pleasingly less saturated to earn its own niche.

Hope this is of some help. Scans to follow. G

Edit: Images

N.B. Too subtle for scanners this one! Here's what I got:

So here's first impressions (Muji Paper w. dip pens & brush):

- believe it or not, quite green to the eye (well, compared to Fern Moss!)

. . . and here's the comparisons. The bear was quite sleepy this morning, so I kept throwing things at the page until it was full! Since I wrote the above I added KWZ Foggy Green (a sample which has now got my interest all over again, darnit!) and my default "neutral" green Kobe #49 Kitano Olive - which is so successful at being drab that I forgot all about it earlier, even though it's my daily ink.

Hmmm, the three "leaf piles" on the right edge are the three main inks; Salamander, Arugula and Safari, everything else is below the writing. Oh, the garland is the three main inks, berries are Violet Starling and Kobe Brick (not quite as juicy as Antietam, but I'm giving a sample a whirl!). I wasn't up for frogs today. Phew!

Just for completeness here's an old post of Brownish Greens, before I got Arugula but putting Salamander & Safari in context.

Edited May 16, 2019 by pgcauk

[pgcauk]

Hard to stop sometimes!

 

These three appear to be cousins at least?

Quite a restful area, and a good backdrop for almost any other color.

 

Footnote: Both of these Birmingham Greens (Arugula & Fern Moss) seem to have a "Vert Empire" quality of loosing color as they dry.

Edited May 16, 2019 by pgcauk

[gyasko]

Herbin Vert Empire definitely isn't bright. It's sort of cost to the green on US money

[pgcauk]

On 5/15/2019 at 3:50 AM, Bex26 said:

Where can I find that Beginnings of Spring? Loving that colour, it may be exactly what I was looking for!

Oops, late reply, sorry! Bit of a mystery as it's one of some small bottles labelled in Chinese that I picked up at the Pen Show from looking at swatch cards. I have come to believe it's an early output from PenBBS in the series "Seasonal Terms", but I haven't tracked down its numeric code.