Organizing Color Cards

[HalloweenHJB]

and the preponderance of green in my collection. I like green but I assumed I would have more browns or blues or yellow to orange. Does this subconscious green bias have psychological significance?

 

 

Most certainly! [i have no idea *what* but it must mean something! ]

 

I'm the opposite: I have very few greens, and tons of golds, browns, and reds. If I love the warm colors because I'm a bit hot tempered, then I imagine you must be cool and serene, like a forest.

 

How's that sound?

[Chrissy]

Fascinating stuff.

[Drawing61]

OK. almost done with ink organizing task. Just some warm tones and my handful of iron galls to go. Question to the group: I have a Noodler's Brown that does not dry. My organizing method is writing, swabbing on Tomoe paper to get a sense of the dark to light range. My Noodler's is an older ink that I have used in the past because the bottle is half empty. This brown ink has been perched on the Tomoe paper for two days and is still wet. I have some dull memory of this being a problem.

[Barkingpig]

I also have a lot of greens, although my favorite color is orange & ALL it's relatives. I may have more browns than oranges, but those associated colors far outnumber the greens. I think my affinity for many of my greens is because the "murky" ones, I would consider members of the brown "family."

 

I also admit to being compulsive about ink purchases, considering them @ the moment to be so much less expensive than a fountain pen. I have realised that "some" of my inks cost MORE than some of the pens I have purchased, so this is no valid rationale.

 

I would say you just haven't finished filling your ink "cupboard," & "NEED" more Browns, oranges & their relatives, until you find the balance of colors, satisfactory in relation to the greens!

[HalloweenHJB]

OK. almost done with ink organizing task. Just some warm tones and my handful of iron galls to go. Question to the group: I have a Noodler's Brown that does not dry. My organizing method is writing, swabbing on Tomoe paper to get a sense of the dark to light range. My Noodler's is an older ink that I have used in the past because the bottle is half empty. This brown ink has been perched on the Tomoe paper for two days and is still wet. I have some dull memory of this being a problem.

 

 

A number of Noodler's inks are over-saturated, and have impossibly long dry times (thinking particularly of Cayenne, Habanero, and Kiowa Pecan). I don't know if there's a remedy —some folks have suggested adding some distilled water to dilute the saturation, but it's tricky trying to get just the right balance without changing the color of the ink.

 

Anyone else have any good suggestions?

[Sandy1]

 

 

A number of Noodler's inks are over-saturated, and have impossibly long dry times (thinking particularly of Cayenne, Habanero, and Kiowa Pecan). I don't know if there's a remedy —some folks have suggested adding some distilled water to dilute the saturation, but it's tricky trying to get just the right balance without changing the color of the ink.

 

Anyone else have any good suggestions?

 

 

Hi,

 

I don't know if its a "good suggestion", but when dealing with dry times, one needs to address the paper: coated / polished / highly calendered papers are more reluctant to absorb ink, so have higher dry times. (That is demonstrated in my recent Ink Reviews which show dry times on various papers.)

 

The common solution is to use a more absorbent paper, with properties opposite of those above.

 

While dilution might give things a nudge, (and I often dilute Noodler's to ~80% concentration), changing paper is the primary factor.

> I've posted numerous examples of diluted ink in the Ink Comparisons Forum.

> Oh, dilution does not change the Hue, it only changes the Value: light to dark - our perception does the rest. The darling Noodler's Apache Sunset is very good at that, a fan dance if you will. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYeUx4kOQwI

> As we are for the most part working with dye-based inks, dilution can lower the dye-load per unit volume to the extent that the base-tint of the paper shows through the ink. e.g. An ink like Herbin Bleu Azure on an Ivory/Yellow paper will start to lean into the Turquoise.

 

It seems to me that for inky sampling, one should use the Hue of paper on which the ink would most likely be used. So for some of my Brown inks, I'd make one sample on plain White paper plus another on Creme/Ivory paper. (The influence of paper base-tint was demonstrated in my Review of G Lalo Velin de France https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/195559-paper-review-g-lalo-velin-de-france/ )

 

Bye,

S1

Edited July 18, 2017 by Sandy1

[LostInColor]

I like the idea of using color cards. I think have swabs of just the colors to compare with would be useful.

 

Currently I use a 3 ring binder with different papers (copy paper, rhodia, tomoe river).

[HalloweenHJB]

 

While dilution might give things an nudge, (and I commonly dilute Noodler's to ~80% concentration), changing paper is the primary factor.

> I've posted numerous examples of diluted ink in the Ink Comparisons Forum.

> Oh, dilution does not change the Hue, it only changes the Value: light to dark - our perception does the rest. The darling Noodler's Apache Sunset is very good at that, a fan dance if you will. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYeUx4kOQwI

Part of the thing is to find a paper that is absorbent, but still gives high line quality and does not bleed- show-through.

 

Bye,

S1

 

 

Good points. You're perfectly right: I didn't mean to say that dilution changes the color, but its value. And I adore the reference to Sally Rand in connection to Apache Sunset. Brilliant!

[HalloweenHJB]

Update, Fall semester, 2017:

 

I teach university-level Spanish (courses in Spanish American Literature and Culture), and I have begun a project on explicit teaching of critical thinking skills for undergraduates.

 

One of the critical thinking skills is the ability to organize information according to a specific criterion. And since my students already know of my fountain pen and ink collections, I incorporated my ink cards for a practice activity: students in three large groups got about 15 different ink cards, and were told to put them in an order. When finished, the other groups had to guess their criterion for the order.

 

 

Two of the three groups put them in a order by color (with very different orders of colors), and one group arranged them alphabetically by name of the ink. Just thought people might find the results curious...

[amberleadavis]

That is pretty cool.

[ParkerDuofold]

Update, Fall semester, 2017:

 

I teach university-level Spanish (courses in Spanish American Literature and Culture), and I have begun a project on explicit teaching of critical thinking skills for undergraduates.

 

One of the critical thinking skills is the ability to organize information according to a specific criterion. And since my students already know of my fountain pen and ink collections, I incorporated my ink cards for a practice activity: students in three large groups got about 15 different ink cards, and were told to put them in an order. When finished, the other groups had to guess their criterion for the order.

 

 

Two of the three groups put them in a order by color (with very different orders of colors), and one group arranged them alphabetically by name of the ink. Just thought people might find the results curious...

Hi Halloween, et al,

 

That is pretty good... this sure takes me back:

 

http://youtu.be/rsRjQDrDnY8

 

Be well.

 

 

- Anthony

[dapprman]

I've organised mine first by hue, second my manufacturer (alphabetical), then by ink name (alphabetical), however I've actually lumped green and blue together as there are too many crossovers before you even start looking at teals.

[HalloweenHJB]

Hi Halloween, et al,

 

That is pretty good... this sure takes me back:

 

http://youtu.be/rsRjQDrDnY8

 

Be well.

 

 

- Anthony

 

 

Actually, we worked on this critical skill the day before, diferentiation (finding differences) and pairing (finding similarities)!

 

And when I mentioned that Facebook seems to be a gathering place to attract all the people who never understood the Sesame Street "One of these things..." segments, they all burst out laughing.

[HalloweenHJB]

I've organised mine first by hue, second my manufacturer (alphabetical), then by ink name (alphabetical), however I've actually lumped green and blue together as there are too many crossovers before you even start looking at teals.

 

It is so complex, isn't it? Clearly, alphabetical is easiest, but I do prefer to keep my cards by hue —it helps keep me from loading two pens with very similar inks. [ I definitely need to stop buying inks in the same color range!!]

[JakobS]

I keep a mental card collection....if that counts! I don't know if cards are perhaps too organized for my ways of doing things, but I have a good sense of what I expect from each ink I have. I am able to think through my collection when deciding on one that fits what I want for a project, or to add something different to my ink rotation. The hardest part is actually finding the bottle!

[ParkerDuofold]

Actually, we worked on this critical skill the day before, diferentiation (finding differences) and pairing (finding similarities)!

 

And when I mentioned that Facebook seems to be a gathering place to attract all the people who never understood the Sesame Street "One of these things..." segments, they all burst out laughing.

Hi Halloween,

 

This is an intriguing remark because "Which of These Things" was one of my favorite segments... and I'm barely ever on Facebook. There must be a correlation.

 

Be well.

 

 

- Anthony

[Sandy1]

I keep a mental card collection....if that counts! I don't know if cards are perhaps too organized for my ways of doing things, but I have a good sense of what I expect from each ink I have. I am able to think through my collection when deciding on one that fits what I want for a project, or to add something different to my ink rotation. The hardest part is actually finding the bottle!

 

+1

 

As much as things can be organised / categorised / catalogued / indexed we have the intuitive fuzzy bits. I try to deal with that by duplicating the samples.

 

Then again, few people could make sense of my basket of athletic sox, let alone my drawers of smalls. (Munsell is out of the game.)

 

Perhaps part of the thing is in the language : would a Spanish speaker go about things differently than one who speaks Swahili?

 

 

Kwaheri,

S1

Edited August 29, 2017 by Sandy1

[AmandaW]

I keep a mental card collection....if that counts! I don't know if cards are perhaps too organized for my ways of doing things, but I have a good sense of what I expect from each ink I have. I am able to think through my collection when deciding on one that fits what I want for a project, or to add something different to my ink rotation. The hardest part is actually finding the bottle!

 

It does count - I used to do that. Then one rainy Sunday I made a swatch book out of an old business card book. Unforunately it made it easier to say yes to a new shade, because I see that it really did fall in between or outside of inks I already had. I think I acquired more inks as a result of getting organised!

 

 

 

...let alone my drawers of smalls. (Munsell is out of the game.)

 

 

ROFL. Imagining Albert trying to account for the difference between granny pants and boyshorts.

[toymachine]

My Maruman cards are running out. Anyone knows whether the Col-o-rings are available at any European stockists? The shipping from US is too high...

 

Looking as well! Sad to see my Maruman's run out. They are like an old friend at this point