Blue Violet Through Red Violet

[pgcauk]

So in my head under the banner "violet" you have those tending blue and those tending red (plus a lot of strange words such as mauve and purple whose meaning seems hard to pin down exactly?).

Rohrer & Klingner's Scabiosa was and is my first love. I have always been fascinated by how the fresh ink goes down blue-violet then dries to red-violet, which echoes so many flower aging processes besides its namesake, but also a little disapointed that the original color is, to me, more attractive than the end result.

In my first go through an inky color wheel I had Blue Myotosis and Diamine Tyrian Purple in the blue and red violet slots.

With more experience, I have started to distinguish paint colors (which can be pure and bright for mixing) from ink colors (which I prefer darker and more subdued for general writing). Time to look at those violets again?

On my first go at seeing what I had I was surprised to find that I seem to be buying inks in the "mid-violet" range over and over, even though in my head blue-violet is preferred. I had full size bottles of Scabiosa (including one in reserve!), Sailor Chu Shu and Birmingham Lilac Wind, all of which were really quite similar. I enjoy Robert Oster's Summer Storm (which I have renamed "Soft Snow of Australia", as for me it is a Winter ink), but either side of this central band was really rather weak. Back to the ink stores I go!

After a rather nerve-wracking choice of Robert Oster's Sydney Lavender and Claret to fill the slots. Heres what the first splodgy page looked like (the left edge being Summer Storm, Sydney Lavender & Claret.):

OK - so these scans are horribly inaccurate compared to my eyes, but hopefully they do show the relative differences.

A simple initial arrangement of a sequence of five:

Which, once my sample of Violet Starling arrived, is expanded as follows:

. . . . with a finer nib:

. . . so the blue and the red ends seem clear, it's those middle four that are subtle:

. . . which is a particularly ghastly scan, presumably through its lack of contrast, to my eyes everything is much pinker, but the relative values are correct.
Back to my original thesis then, here's a final three:

Obviously this is not intended to be exhaustive or comprehensive, just my own personal choices in digging at a general theme.
I would love to hear (and see examples!) of other inks in each of these three adjacent color areas (or other systems for dividing them up).

Edited May 5, 2019 by pgcauk

[effrafax]

 

I enjoy Robert Oster's Summer Storm (which I have renamed "Soft Snow of Australia", as for me it is a Winter ink)

 

You haven't seen our storms, have you?

[pgcauk]

You haven't seen our storms, have you?

Zero antipodean experience, me!

I love storm lighting and I'm sure the name is very evocative, but the color has a value beyond that one image, and this is a problem I have with color naming in general (house paints equally with ink!) and, I must admit, Robert Oster more than most (although of course "Soft Snow of Ohara" is the same in reverse). Hippo pink and Crocodile green are terrific names, but the image is so strong that it can be hard to escape from. I fell into this trap for a while with Oster's "Bronze", which is a color of value beyond this (wonderful!) description, also the two inks here, Claret, which is a really interesting red/mauve, but if I file it under "wine", that will be really hard to get away from, and Lavender, which sounds a tad too pretty for such an interesting grey ink?

Again, it's not just Oster, I had a big hurdle recently with Kobe #49 which is not my idea of olive at all, but a terrific color (ditto "brick"). I think it's a personal stage where I'm trying to learn color as a language in itself, rather than one mediated through language.

 

Wordy, huh?

[amberleadavis]

OOO this is beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

[DrDebG]

Wonderful comparisons! Very informative!

[inkstainedruth]

Love the value changes from blue-violet to red violet. Don't love that you now have me wanting to try some more inks....

It's funny. Some of the first bottled inks I ever bought were purples: PR Purple Mojo and Noodler's North African Violet, both of which are middle of the spectrum purples (in fact they're very similar to each other -- PRPM is a little softer and less vibrant, but dries a bit faster than NAV does).

But then I discovered the color nuances of inks that *aren't* middle of the spectrum purples. And while I'm clearly not nearly as enamored of Scabiosa, I do have a bottle of it (I was underwhelmed by Pousierre de Lune when I tried it. And I like that you've included Diamine Damson, which is one of my favorite very dark-toned purples (and which has been neglected of late.

I still have way more blues and blue blacks than anything else, but I would say that my purples, red-violets and indigo blue purples are probably not all that far behind at this point.

Thanks for the comparisons -- and not....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[amberleadavis]

OH YES, this is awesome. Can you add this to the Purple thread too?

[ENewton]

pgcauk, thank you for sharing your discoveries, in your exquisite handwriting.

 

I think we are on the same color quest, for a bluer Scabiosa. I had high hopes for Oster Barossa Grape, but it was just too dry and low in saturation to work in any of my pens.

 

What is your favorite pen for Scabiosa?

[pgcauk]

pgcauk, thank you for sharing your discoveries, in your exquisite handwriting.

 

I think we are on the same color quest, for a bluer Scabiosa. I had high hopes for Oster Barossa Grape, but it was just too dry and low in saturation to work in any of my pens.

 

What is your favorite pen for Scabiosa?

 

Oh, please do share your notes and any successes!

I had a sample of Oster's "Purple Rock" which didn't resonate with me at all, but I am enjoying the "Pewter" (my name for Sydney Lavender - a name which just sounds way too pretty!). It's Jacaranda season in Los Angeles at the moment - such a wonderful color! Neither the "Pewter" nor "Summer Storm" are quite Jacaranda, but they are the closest of what I have.

 

I did make note of Callifolio "Cassis" (also PenBBS have a blackberry in the new range), but as I already have and admire Chu Shu as a somber grey-violet, that looks like being "same river twice"? Similarly the KWZ IG violets, although I would like to see a side by side there.

 

Scabiosa was the first "posh" ink that really resonated with me when I originally stepped (back?) into this world in 2016, and it has always lived in my first "posh" pen*, a Lamy CP1 with a full set of interchangeable nibs. I find I mostly switch between the EF and the 1.5 and 1.9 italics. I have never had any problems with "dryness", although it's best not to let the converter run dry.

 

(*I always wrote with a fountain, but for a decade or so put up with my local stationers "Retro 51" offerings, or whatever they had in Staples - a sad period!)

 

Oh, while we're praising Birmingham, did you try their Arugula? I have a lot of brownish greens, but this one is quite special!

[ENewton]

Sydney Lavender looks lovely. Soft Snow of Ohara is one of my favorite inks, and Lavender seems to run in the same vein.

 

I bought a bottle of Purple Rock at a pen show but soon discovered that it looks green, or turns green, on some papers. Lilac Wind is what I expected Purple Rock to be.

 

Arugula looks quite unusual, but all my inks except one are purple.

[pgcauk]

Yes, the lavender is nicely grey, like a blue and a pink mix that cancel each other out!

Oh, I was scratching a bit more this morning at the difference between Lilac Wind and Violet Starling. Something curious on my blotter led me to try a few drops of each with water added on a kitchen towel - just stunning! Although they are tonally very close straight from the bottle, the Lilac has a dull magenta core with a blue corona, while the Violet has a blue core with a bright pink corona! I tried some ink and wash sketching and although the drawn lines look quite similar, once water is added the results are quite distinct with the Lilac being much more solemn!

What an exciting world!

More experiments to follow, and the Frick Building Stained Glass arriving on Monday!

 

Oh, and "all my inks are purple" is quite an impressive discipline! I think I would put violet first, but I really like violets and greens together, and my current trilogy is a "secondary colors" triangle;

Violet for thoughts, ideas and wishes (inner world)

Green for observations (outer experience)

Brick red for actions (and their consequences!)

[pgcauk]

LOOKIT!

So Birmingham Pens' Lilac Wind (herinafter referred to as "David") and Violet Starling are pretty hard to tell apart in terms of hue and tone, yet they "feel" quite distinct. I was pondering this matter when I happened to wipe the collar and back of a refilled pen on some tissue - oh my!

Here's "drops of ink on a kitchen towel" (posh word = chromatography):

That's Violet Starling on the left, David on the right -

. . . . which is so fascinating as to me David has always felt somewhat solemn. and Starling quite lively even though they are almost indistinguishable!

With sketch and wash, the difference becomes clear:

The upper (also Jenny preening on the right!) is David, which washes out a dusky rose but with quite a blue outline, the lower is Violet Starling, which washes out bluer but fades to pink rather than outlining.
What a fascinating world!
Now I'm really looking forward to my full bottles of Violet Starling and Frick Building Stained Glass tomorrow!

[ENewton]

Very nice drawing. I'm still on my sample of Lilac Wind. Maybe I need a bottle.

[pgcauk]

Very nice drawing. I'm still on my sample of Lilac Wind. Maybe I need a bottle.

I found myself enjoying the Violet Starling more, although I couldn't figure out why as they're so close in hue and tone. I recommend at least a sample in with your next Birmingham order!

Also I am having to go back over all my old Birmingham samples as I found that the pen I have been using to test them (a broad stub, which is probably a bit too wet) was making them look flat and dull (which is what put me off Waterfont Dusk initially - it's now looking very tempting again!), but in other nibs that bring out the color and shading they are far more interesting!

Also, did you see this: https://www.wellappointeddesk.com/2018/10/eye-candy-birmingham-pen-co-purplepalooza/ ?

[pgcauk]

Here's Blue through Red Violets with a range of Greens (and the occasional Orange):

Secondary colors are my happy place!

Decoding:

Soft Snow AU = Oster Summer Storm

Pewter = Oster Sydney Lavender

Frick = Birmingham Frick Building Stained Glass

David = Birmingham David O. Selznick Lilac Wind

Starling = " Pittsburgh Aviary Violet Starling

Scabiosa = the one and only!

Moondust = the French stuff!

Mallow = Oster Claret (I even tried calling this "Hollyhock" once - it didn't stick!)

Edited June 26, 2019 by pgcauk