Major Third: In Praise Of Tertiary Colors

[HalloweenHJB]

I love the in-between-ness of the tertiaries; they're complex, blended, impure, not one thing, nor t'other. Those yellow-oranges, red-oranges, red-purples, blue-purples, blue-greens, and yellow-greens.

 

So all you ink lovers out there who love the tertiary colors: let's hear / see your favorites in the in-between ranges.

 

Here are the colors I have loaded in pens at the moment:

 

 

 

 

[Eclipse157]

Hmmm what a nice idea! I love tertiaries in the blue-purple area... Lamy Azurite, Noodler's La Couleur Royale, R.O. Dragon's Night... that kind of stuff...

 

In the warm orange... Diamine Gerbera, Iroshizuku Fuyu-gaki

 

For the olive area... prolly Iroshizuku Ina-ho...

[ScarletWoodland]

I am ALL about the tertiaries and get bored very quickly with more standard colours. Ambers and azures are my most used inks but I love a red-purple, coral, teal or olive too.

 

The pens I have in front of me are inked with KWZ El Dorado, Diamine Coral, Noodler's Saguaro Wine, Robert Oster Fire & Ice and Diamine Meadow, so you know where I stand 😄. Haven't got the hang of blue-purples or orange-reds yet for some reason.

[Patrick L]

Thanks for your post HalloweenHJB, As far as I know , there are only three primary colors. Red, Blue and Yellow. Green is not a primary color, it's a secondary color. Orange and Violet are also secondary colors. And then there's the tertiary colors which your post is about.

I happen to like your posts HalloweenHJB

Take care

Patrick

[Mercian]

This is a fascinating topic

 

I have to say though that your J. Herbin Vert Reseda doesn’t look ‘teal’ to me - it’s more like ‘jade’ to my eyes.
To me, ‘teal’ would be more-closely represented by LAMY ‘Petrol’, or by Diamine ‘Eau de Nil’ (or of course Diamine ‘Teal’).

Please would you let us know what ink you used to represent ‘violet’?

I think that its colour looks lovely

Edited May 20, 2020 by Mercian

[N1003U]

  On 5/20/2020 at 2:35 PM, HalloweenHJB said:

I love the in-between-ness of the tertiaries; they're complex, blended, impure, not one thing, nor t'other. Those yellow-oranges, red-oranges, red-purples, blue-purples, blue-greens, and yellow-greens.

 

So all you ink lovers out there who love the tertiary colors: let's hear / see your favorites in the in-between ranges.

 

Here are the colors I have loaded in pens at the moment:

 

 

 

 

Lovely diagram there. +1 to all of the other positive comments.

 

What kind of notebook is that? I really like the ruling.

[I-am-not-really-here]

Chartruese, quite a lovely descriptive name. Much better than what I call it - puke yellow.

[lapis]

Excellent idea. I don't know if it's your own discovery but it sure is a great creation. Apart from that it also gets me back into a lot of my long-unused bottles!

[BaronWulfraed]

  On 5/20/2020 at 4:00 PM, Patrick L said:

Thanks for your post HalloweenHJB, As far as I know , there are only three primary colors. Red, Blue and Yellow. Green is not a primary color, it's a secondary color. Orange and Violet are also secondary colors. And then there's the tertiary colors which your post is about.

I happen to like your posts HalloweenHJB

Take care

Patrick

The primary colors of LIGHT are RED, GREEN, BLUE.

 

The primary colors of PIGMENTS/DYES are YELLOW, MAGENTA, CYAN (look at any business color printer -- you will find CMYK -- where K represents BLACK; photo color printers often add additional inks to produce a better gamut -- my ESP R2000 adds true red and orange; it's biased to producing accurate skin tones, others add half intensity cyan and magenta).

 

R&G light => yellow

G&B light => cyan

B&R light => magenta

 

conversely,

 

Y&M pigment => red

M&C pigment => blue

C&Y pigment => green

 

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Yellow-Dont-Make-Green/dp/0967962870

[HalloweenHJB]

  On 5/20/2020 at 3:20 PM, Eclipse157 said:

Hmmm what a nice idea! I love tertiaries in the blue-purple area... Lamy Azurite, Noodler's La Couleur Royale, R.O. Dragon's Night... that kind of stuff...

 

In the warm orange... Diamine Gerbera, Iroshizuku Fuyu-gaki

 

For the olive area... prolly Iroshizuku Ina-ho...

 

I love your orange choices.

 

As for the "blurples" (as Amberlea calls them), are not my favorites, but I'd like to see a sample of Azurite. Can you show me that one?

[HalloweenHJB]

  On 5/20/2020 at 3:40 PM, ScarletWoodland said:

I am ALL about the tertiaries and get bored very quickly with more standard colours. Ambers and azures are my most used inks but I love a red-purple, coral, teal or olive too.

 

The pens I have in front of me are inked with KWZ El Dorado, Diamine Coral, Noodler's Saguaro Wine, Robert Oster Fire & Ice and Diamine Meadow, so you know where I stand . Haven't got the hang of blue-purples or orange-reds yet for some reason.

 

You rock. I love every one of the inks you name. El Dorado is magic in a bottle.

 

And give yourself time with the orange-reds. I used to have a love-hate relationship with them, and after a couple of close encounters with some great inks (Sailor Hachimitsu and Kinmokusei, Krishna Orange Halloween, etc.), I fell madly in love.

Edited May 20, 2020 by HalloweenHJB

[HalloweenHJB]

  On 5/20/2020 at 4:00 PM, Patrick L said:

Thanks for your post HalloweenHJB, As far as I know , there are only three primary colors. Red, Blue and Yellow. Green is not a primary color, it's a secondary color. Orange and Violet are also secondary colors. And then there's the tertiary colors which your post is about.

I happen to like your posts HalloweenHJB

Take care

Patrick

 

Agreed. Like you, I follow the generations of artists who categorize colors by how the red/blue/yellow colors can be mixed to create (most of) the rest. RGB and CMYK are useful for computers and printers, so I appreciate those modes, but inks are "old-school" so I like the traditional color wheel when I think about color.

[Paul-in-SF]

  On 5/20/2020 at 8:13 PM, BaronWulfraed said:

The primary colors of LIGHT are RED, GREEN, BLUE.

 

The primary colors of PIGMENTS/DYES are YELLOW, MAGENTA, CYAN (look at any business color printer -- you will find CMYK -- where K represents BLACK; photo color printers often add additional inks to produce a better gamut -- my ESP R2000 adds true red and orange; it's biased to producing accurate skin tones, others add half intensity cyan and magenta).

 

R&G light => yellow

G&B light => cyan

B&R light => magenta

 

conversely,

 

Y&M pigment => red

M&C pigment => blue

C&Y pigment => green

 

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Yellow-Dont-Make-Green/dp/0967962870

I spent 40 years in the print trade so this is the way I am accustomed to thinking of colors. I have a very magenta ink, Rohrer and Klingner Solferino, and it seems to pop out on the page. Cyan, on the other hand, seems a little harder to pinpoint, and although I have a few inks in the aqua range none of them pops out to me. I don't have any yellow inks.

 

Of the tertiary colors in the color wheel above, I am most drawn to cobalt (and the other blurples, a term which I have also heard Mike Matteson use), and vermilion.

[HalloweenHJB]

  On 5/20/2020 at 5:27 PM, Mercian said:

This is a fascinating topic

 

I have to say though that your J. Herbin Vert Reseda doesn’t look ‘teal’ to me - it’s more like ‘jade’ to my eyes.

To me, ‘teal’ would be more-closely represented by LAMY ‘Petrol’, or by Diamine ‘Eau de Nil’ (or of course Diamine ‘Teal’).

 

Please would you let us know what ink you used to represent ‘violet’?

I think that its colour looks lovely

 

You are right; my choice for Teal was based on using brighter colors so that they'd "pop" more in the photo. The murkier colors, like Eau de Nil are better representatives, but they're more "serious", ya know? By the way, have you tried Krishna Elegant Teal? You might enjoy it...

 

The Violet here is de Atramentis [scented] Violet. It's a great color, a well-behaved ink, and smells nice while it's wet. Trifecta, as they say in New York.

Edited May 20, 2020 by HalloweenHJB

[HalloweenHJB]

  On 5/20/2020 at 5:58 PM, N1003U said:

Lovely diagram there. +1 to all of the other positive comments.

 

What kind of notebook is that? I really like the ruling.

 

Oh, you must try this paper. The notebook is made by Rhodia, and the paper is excellent for fountain pens. Almost no bleedthrough, and the graph lines are good for practicing letter forms. Yes, it's a bit expensive, but you'll love it.

[HalloweenHJB]

  On 5/20/2020 at 6:50 PM, I-am-not-really-here said:

Chartruese, quite a lovely descriptive name. Much better than what I call it - puke yellow.

 

Yeah, I totally agree. It is definitely my least favorite color range. But it is good to use as an accent color in a text. If necessary.

[HalloweenHJB]

  On 5/20/2020 at 8:13 PM, BaronWulfraed said:

The primary colors of LIGHT are RED, GREEN, BLUE.

 

The primary colors of PIGMENTS/DYES are YELLOW, MAGENTA, CYAN (look at any business color printer -- you will find CMYK -- where K represents BLACK; photo color printers often add additional inks to produce a better gamut -- my ESP R2000 adds true red and orange; it's biased to producing accurate skin tones, others add half intensity cyan and magenta).

 

R&G light => yellow

G&B light => cyan

B&R light => magenta

 

conversely,

 

Y&M pigment => red

M&C pigment => blue

C&Y pigment => green

 

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Yellow-Dont-Make-Green/dp/0967962870

 

Yes, thank you, I do understand that the artist's color wheel model of color theory is a tradition that does not correspond precisely to scientific definitions of how color works and how we perceive it. For printers, yes, the mix of basic inks is based on a different model. Got it.

 

My original post was not intended to create a debate on what the primary colors are (YRB, or YGB, or CMYK, or RBG), but rather, how much we may enjoy the colors of inks that fall in between whatever pure colors you choose as the starting point.

 

So do you have a favorite amber or vermilion or magenta fountain pen ink?

Edited May 20, 2020 by HalloweenHJB

[Mercian]

  On 5/20/2020 at 9:25 PM, HalloweenHJB said:

 

So do you have a favorite amber or vermilion or magenta fountain pen ink?

You just reminded me of how Pelikan 4001 Violett looks to my eyes.

 

When it pools e.g. in the bottle’s cap it seems to me to be a dark colour like the violet on your picture.

 

I bought it when I wanted a dark ‘purple’ colour. I chose it over the store’s only other purple at the time (Waterman Purple), because of the darker appearance of the blobs of ink in the bottle’s cap.

But I mostly write with F nibs, and it often comes out looking more to my eyes like the mid-point between the violet and magenta on your picture.

To my eyes, it is very similar in hue to the shortest-wavelength light that is visible in a rainbow. Which is the colour that we call ‘violet’, so I’m not complaining.

[N1003U]

  On 5/20/2020 at 9:04 PM, HalloweenHJB said:

 

Oh, you must try this paper. The notebook is made by Rhodia, and the paper is excellent for fountain pens. Almost no bleedthrough, and the graph lines are good for practicing letter forms. Yes, it's a bit expensive, but you'll love it.

Ah, its a Rhodia notebook? Great! I will look for it next time I am out and about. I was not familiar with that particular ruling, but yes, Rhodia makes a nice fountain-pen-friendly paper.

[ScarletWoodland]

  On 5/20/2020 at 8:39 PM, HalloweenHJB said:

 

You rock. I love every one of the inks you name. El Dorado is magic in a bottle.

 

And give yourself time with the orange-reds. I used to have a love-hate relationship with them, and after a couple of close encounters with some great inks (Sailor Hachimitsu and Kinmokusei, Krishna Orange Halloween, etc.), I fell madly in love.

I have been coveting Krishna Halloween and Goldfish now that you mention it 😁. What I really want is bottles of Noodler's Habanero and/or Cayenne for orange to red shading, can totally get on board with that. Will have to import some from Europe before UK/EU trade relations go kersplat.