Sweeping Up The Fallen Leaves (Murky Green Compost Piles!)

December 16, 2018

I'm going to dispute that with this particular color area at least, as it has been my delight to discover that beyond the differences arising from nibs and papers and such, the light that you are reading by can completely shift the hue of the ink - bluer cancels blue and sends a green towards yellow/brown, yellow cancels yellow and sends a green towards blue/grey. I have spent many happy hours checking writing samples and splodges under an LED flashlight vs. under the old fashioned bulbs in my bathroom to verify this. I guess with only one ink on a page you could maybe make corrections, but with multiple inks there are too many plates spinning!
If I can I like to take a photo in natural light to compare to the scan, but this time of year that's not so easy!
If the subtlety of the best of these inks was able to be reproduced, well, what would the appeal be? I research on here endlessly, and it's a great resource, but it in no way approaches the tangible experience of pen, ink and paper!
Counter: The scan above is so far off on Vert Empire and Riddle Green to be misleading, and for that I accept responsibility, but I thought the relative values of the main three inks were interesting enough to give the image value: Cement is a harder stone grey (comp. Diamine Graphite), Fern Moss is softer, bluer, and more ambiguous, while Walt Whitman hovers between grey-green and green-brown.

Oh, a quick online comparison of a few of the inks on your page revealed their inaccuracy . . . yet failed to diminish their beauty.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Tas

December 16, 2018

I'm going to dispute that with this particular color area at least, as it has been my delight to discover that beyond the differences arising from nibs and papers and such, the light that you are reading by can completely shift the hue of the ink

Sorry, but I think you're arguing for digital scanning and reproduction processes to render output that match your subjective perception of colour, as opposed to accurate scanning that may show your visual perception to be what is inaccurate. If circumstances conspire to make you perfect a green banana as yellow, would accurate digital image capture and reproduction show a green banana when you look at the screen, or a yellow one?

December 18, 2018

Objectivity is a myth!
I can only experience vision through the agency of my eyes, and without a source of light, whose atmospheric color is constantly shifting, there is no perception of color at all!
Here is a student sketch from a History of Science class that I teach, where students were recently able to produce a great range of warm and cool colors (including melon green - a new one for me!) with nothing more than a flashlight and a fish-tank containing a mix of water and milk (i.e. zero colored objects) - were those colors "subjective"?!

. . . . also do you know why cyan is the preferred color for operating theater gowns?

- but I admit that I could take more care over my scanning!

. . . . and I now have a project to document a single splodge of Robert Oster's Khakhi under various light conditions - total chameleon that one!

Edited December 18, 2018 by pgcauk

March 5, 2022

On 12/18/2018 at 2:15 PM, pgcauk said:

. . . . also do you know why cyan is the preferred color for operating theater gowns?

I just googled this and the answer made my day!

"Scrubs used to be white — the color of cleanliness. Then in the early 20th century, one influential doctor switched to green because he thought it would be easier on a surgeon’s eyes, according to an article in a 1998 issue of Today’s Surgical Nurse. Although it is hard to confirm whether green scrubs became popular for this reason, green may be especially well-suited to help doctors see better in the operating room because it is the opposite of red on the color wheel.

Green could help physicians see better for two reasons. First, looking at blue or green can refresh a doctor’s vision of red things, including the bloody innards of a patient during surgery. The brain interprets colors relative to each other. If a surgeon stares at something that’s red and pink, he becomes desensitized to it. The red signal in the brain actually fades, which could make it harder to see the nuances of the human body. Looking at something green from time to time can keep someone’s eyes more sensitive to variations in red, according to John Werner, a psychologist who studies vision at the University of California, Davis."

https://www.livescience.com/32450-why-do-doctors-wear-green-or-blue-scrubs-.html

I wonder if the influential doctor who switched to green gowns is also a fan of green fountain pen ink?