Ink View: Calle Real: Papier Plume’S Next In The History Of New Orleans Inspired Inks

[Jackokun]

I got a nice surprise from Papier Plume when they sent me a sample of the next upcoming ink. The first one, Street Car Green(SCG), was one that I got by chance and Papier Plumes generosity. I used SCG for my first ink (re)View.

The ink is Calle Real (Spanish for Royal Street), an ink that follows the theme of historic New Orleans, where each ink released is meant to evoke some portion of the city's history. With each ink bottle there is a brief history of the ink and what it evokes, including a teaser of the next releases (here is the hint, the inks to be released are NOT highlighted, ). All this information is well presented in nice card

The Card

Front/Back:


So what is the actual Calle Real? (I know a few may have diferent opinions and thoughts on the matter, so please bear with me if I'm saying something that is not true or completely accurate ). Calle Real according to history is what Royal Street used to be called when Spain had control over New Orleans. It is one of the oldest streets in the city (dating back to when it was a French colony then Rue Royale ) and one of the best known streets in NOLA.

At some point during the late 1800s and early 1900s the city designated the streets using tiles, one letter per tile (tiles are 4x 6x 3/4and the letter 5) and they were placed on each corner of every block. Now, when you walk New Orleans you will notice that there are wall tiles and street tiles. Yes! But the wall tiles are a way for the city to commemorate the street names as they were known then. The Original tiles are actually the street tiles.

Here is a picture of one of the wall tiles:


Here is a picture of the street tiles:


And here a little more on facts: the tiles used are called Encaustic tiles. These are unglazed and the designs and colors are not painted using dyes or minerals, but come from different colors of clay using inlaid patters and then baked. The tiles made through this process are stronger and more resistant to wear/tear. ( from what I could find encaustic is not the right term in theory-, but it is how is commonly known ). The process for creating these types of tiles is costly and time consuming, but the city, per my understanding, makes the effort to maintain the tiles even during renovations. Over the years the tiles remain both as a historic reference and as a characteristic trait of the French Quarter.

Royal Street is much, much more, located just one block away from the Bourbon Street; Royal Street is no less famous than his street relative. While Bourbon Street is known for its endless bars and nighttime entertainment, Royal Street is the home of multitude of shops and galleries, where you can appreciate during daytime the citys culture and art, street musicians and performers, great for-every-budget restaurants, some upscale lodging, the haunted LaLaurie House (for those that like some good ghost stories) and of course Papier Plume

A well suited start for a commemorative ink.

So here is New Orleans inspired inks Take 2! Calle Real

As per Paiper Plume, Calle Real is inspired in the color of the wall tiles, yes some might argue that the color changes from tile to tile depending on the wear and tear and general passing of time, but as per my understanding the ink is based on the more consistent color on the wall tiles.

As you can guess, Calle Real is a blue ink within the Royal Blue Family, which is a nice play on the Royal name of the street. Ha!

(disclaimer: I'm still working out the kinks on picture vs. scan to have the most truer representation so it is a work in progress)

Here is what the swab looks like in the Mnemosyne card



After spending some time writing with ink, tossing it on medium and fine pens both wet and dry, and testing it using different papers, I would classify this as a mid-Royal Blue, not too dark and not too light, with a good flow and medium saturation (I personally medium to be a great setting of saturation if you are looking for shading in an ink), and very consistent in terms of properties with the other Papier Plumes inks I have.

Now on my first review I used 2 kinds of paper. To be both consistent and a little more thorough this time, I used 5 types of paper, Tomoe River, Rhodia, Clairefountaine Thriomphe (CF), traditional copy paper and laid paper.

The pens used for writing were Parker pens: A Parker Premier Tartan in Fine and Parker Duofold Centennial in Medium. The medium Duofold has a wetter nib, and was the one used for most of the comparisons.

I looked into the following: Flow, saturation, shading, sheen, bleed-through, see-through/show-through, feathering and pooling. With other tests such as water, bleach and alcohol and dry times. Sometimes it will be a yes/no answer, sometimes 1-5 (1 being poor, 5 being excellent)

I also came up with the following overview card, thought to be more practical than having fuill sheets of paper and you can also see the comparison right there.

Here are some of the results in the crossover overview card


You can see that each column is representative of the paper used.

• Flow: Flow is really good, very fluid, and constant across all papers and pens used (not just the ones on this view. feels like you are using water, which is something to say since the ink has some waterproof properties.
• Saturation: I found Calle Real to be a little more saturated, this did not compromised in the shading as much as I would thought, but on the plus side made the ink more vibrant and less subject to the texture of the paper giving it a an even spread.
• Sheen: This ink has some hints of sheen, they can really be seen in the Tomoe River paper, but depending on the wetness of the pen used it can also show in CF and Rhodia (as did in my experience)
• Bleed-through: None for the most part with the exception of the traditional copy paper who sucked in the ink like a sponge
• Show-through: There is some slight, very slight on the CF, more noticeable on the Tomoe River and the copy paper. But not enough to not be able to write on both sides (if the copy paper didnt bleed as it did this will also be true for it).
• Feathering: For the most part Calle real held its ground here. Some minimal feathering with CF and the laid paper (although this last one we can argue is the papers texture). The big fail was on the copy paper not surprising
• Pooling: This is not the shading but more on the pooling on the edges of the letters, I enjoy when the inks provide this, and I could see some of this pooling on Tomoe, CF and Rhodia
• Water Resistance: The tests shown on the card were done using an eyedropper, leaving it a few seconds then using a tissue paper to retrieve the excess. But offline I did a more smear/spread test. Tests show that the ink was not really waterproof, but you could potentially recover some of the writing if need to be. One exception was the copy paper, which absorbed the ink and held on to it. I know Im surprised as well.
• Alcohol Resistance: Very consistent across you, would be able to recover from this one
• Bleach Resistance: None, Zip , nada.
• Dry Times: They were very consistent across all but the copy paper (who was record breaking of less than 10 seconds). Now, keep in mind that I was using a wetter nib, the fine nib did better across.

As for comparison, here are the closest blues I could find from the bottles that I have.

 

From the top and then left to right:

 

Ink Name

Maker

Overall notes

Calle Real

Papier Plume

N/A

Blue

Visconti

Darker , some shading , sheen when it pools, more saturated.

Royal Blue

S.T. Dupont

The lightest of the bunch, less saturated, has sheen, and a purpler hint than the rest, good shading.

Blue Velvet

Diamine (150th Collection)

The darkest of the bunch, More saturated, darker, more sheen, slight shading

Royal Blue

Pelikan

Lighter, some shading, some sheen when it pools

 

And here is a quick sketch of the Royal Street using Calle Real !


but imagine that the street is a very well transited street, in fact it becomes a pedestrian street during the afternoons.

Here is some Cursive and Block writing for reference.


Opinion
I find blue one of the most personal colors when it comes to what you prefer. I know the same can be said for other colors, but I find blue one of the most extensive out there. That being said, in comparison of what I have experience with, and what I have, I find really good properties on Calle Real, the slightly more saturation allows for more solid lay down of the ink which makes it vibrant (more so than the ones I compare it to), while it also maintains shading properties across all types of paper used. It is work appropriate and fits right in the middle of the inks I have. There is some draw backs in terms of resistance to water, alcohol or bleach, but that is not a deal-breaker. A nice ink that it is pleasant to look at .

Release
So, hopefully you have stuck with me until this point. If you like this ink, note that there will only be 30 bottles for sale. From what I understand the first ink released in this collection (Street Car Green) was sold out in less than an hour. The ink will be sold in 1 Oz / 30 ml bottles and will look like this:



If someone is interested my understanding is that will be up for grabs this Friday (June 17, 2016)/ or Monday at the latest.

Availability will be noted through their newsletter first, then Instagram, then Facebook, and finally twitter (in that order).

 

you can get this and more other goodies at https://www.papierplume.com/


Thank you for sticking with this view until the end

Edited June 16, 2016 by Jackokun

[visvamitra]

Excellent review,

 

Thank you for taking time to make such a comprehensive study of an ink. I don't really like the color but I enjoy your work a lot

 

Best

[Tas]

Marvellous !
Thank you

[fountainpagan]

What a splendid review.

 

Congratulations for such extensive analysis, and explanations. And many thanks.

 

I don't really like this blue, but enjoyed greatly your presentation.

[lapis]

Excellent review. Even "better" (if possible) than the one on SCR. I love the way they evoke a bit of history about some part of the town. The inks themselves are beautiful. I hope they keep up bringing an exact color out which nobody else has yet... a "Royal Blue" sounds like a tough one to me....

 

Mike

[Jackokun]

  On 6/16/2016 at 10:02 AM, lapis said:

Excellent review. Even "better" (if possible) than the one on SCR. I love the way they evoke a bit of history about some part of the town. The inks themselves are beautiful. I hope they keep up bringing an exact color out which nobody else has yet... a "Royal Blue" sounds like a tough one to me....

 

Mike

 

Appreciate the kind words. Yeah I agree the Royal blue line is a tough market , it is a good ink, but yes a tough market of a classic blue

[Jackokun]

  On 6/16/2016 at 9:46 AM, fountainpagan said:

What a splendid review.

 

Congratulations for such extensive analysis, and explanations. And many thanks.

 

I don't really like this blue, but enjoyed greatly your presentation.

Thank you very much! appreciate the notes

[Jackokun]

  On 6/16/2016 at 8:15 AM, visvamitra said:

Excellent review,

 

Thank you for taking time to make such a comprehensive study of an ink. I don't really like the color but I enjoy your work a lot

 

Best

 

Like wise! I also enjoy your reviews truly, thank you!

[Jackokun]

  On 6/16/2016 at 9:06 AM, Tas said:

Marvellous !

Thank you

Thank you!

[Jackokun]

  On 6/16/2016 at 9:46 AM, fountainpagan said:

What a splendid review.

 

Congratulations for such extensive analysis, and explanations. And many thanks.

 

I don't really like this blue, but enjoyed greatly your presentation.

 

Thank you very much!

[mehandiratta]

Amazing sketch

[Jackokun]

Thanks !

 

BTW the ink if for sale today check it out at Papier Plume - New Orleans Collection Fountain Pen Ink - Calle Real

[Director Bob]

I've read a lot of ink reviews (and reviews in general). I think this may be the best I've ever seen. Thorough and knowledgable without being verbose or self-serving. You presented all the information I want to know about an ink AND great history AND great photos! Bravo!

[Jackokun]

Much apreciated Director Bob! thank you for the kind words.