Review: J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

When I first saw J. Herbin's Ambre de Birmanie fountain pen ink, I thought this would be perfect for taking on a vacation to the Mediterranean.  Can't you just see Italian villas and Spanish castles in this shade?

 

 Here I am in the wet, green, cloudy Pacific Northwest, but in the end I'm still finding this color very useful and really  a joy to work with.  It implies a sunny day even if it's not literal...

It's dark enough in a fountain pen to work well for line drawings...

You can use it in a brush pen to add mid-tone.

Brush it over some fountain pen inks and it will make mud... but over others it makes magic.

This ink is great in fountain pen or brush pen. I see the most potential for use in sketching, but if your pen lays down a nice dense line, it's beautiful for writing as well.  

Review: Noodler's Antietam ink

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

Antietam (pronounced something like an-TEE-dum) is not one of the more frequently appreciated colors of Noodler's ink, but I'm a big fan.  This ink is generally described as looking "antique" or like dried blood. It caught my eye while searching for a rich, red-tinted brown, and it fits the bill very, very well.  

This particular color of Noodler's isn't widely available but right now it does appear to be stocked by both Writer's Bloc and Goulet Pens. 

Because the color has such strong shading, it changes a lot depending on what you're using it with - your paper and especially your pen make a huge difference.  In general, the thicker it is laid on and the less absorbent your paper, the more the ink moves towards an extremely rich deep red.  A lighter layer can look like rich orange or thin tomato, depending on the paper and pen.  Some paper pushes it towards brown.

Here's the ink looking like thin tomato, loaded into the cartridge of a Kuretake Hair Brush pen and applied to cream-toned Aquabee watercolor paper. While I don't love the tomato shade, the layering options it allows for are quite fun.

Here it is looking like a rich, antique brown, loaded in a Lamy Safari and laid down in a Moleskine Sketchbook.  These are salvaged architectural pieces sketched last December during a Portland Urban Sketchers expedition to the Architectural Heritage Center.

This was on vintage accounting paper, applied in combination with a Kuretake Fudegokochi gray pen and lots of water (Antietam is a water soluble ink).

These two animal sketches are from the same Moleskine notebook, but the giraffe page had a coat of red acrylic on the opposite side which may have affected the ink absorption... which affected the ink color. I think that's why the giraffe looks a deeper red, while the sloth is a little bit orange.

The Noodler's flexible nib pen (review forthcoming) was a great match for the Antietam ink - check out the gorgeous shading on the sloth's fur. It's a little like what you get from a bamboo dip pen.

Antietam ink has a huge amount of character and a lot to say - all these sketches show different tones, but all the ink came out of the same bottle.  I recommend this ink most highly for use in line drawings using a pen that allows line variation, in which case it adds a lot of energy and shading without the need to add watercolors.  

If you do want to use it in combination with other colors, it will take some caution as the Antietam is strong and can clash with your regular palette, and of course be careful adding water since it is not waterproof - but there's a lot of room for adventure here, and the gorgeousness of the color will make you want to find new ways to use it.

Review: J. Herbin Lie de Thé Fountain Pen Ink

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

Not long ago I started exploring brown pen options in the post Brown Pen Battle. Now I add for consideration a fountain pen option:  J. Herbin's Lie de Thé (Tea Brown) ink.

J. Herbin offers some gorgeous, brilliant, and intriguing colors, and Lie de Thé is no exception.  I found it to be a very pleasing brown tone that seems to dance between all its constituent colors so that sometimes I see more green or yellow in it and sometimes red.  The above strokes were made with a brush;  I've also loaded the ink into my Pilot Penmanship and Hero M86 Chinese Calligraphy Pen, shown here with a couple of comparison colors.

 
Of course, the J. Herbin inks are not waterproof, and therefore are not going to be ideal for all uses. Still, oh man, what a lovely color.  

My only other brown-ish ink right now is Noodler's Antietam, which is actually more of a red than a brown. It's an extremely beautiful color that I've tried to use as if it were brown but the red can easily overwhelm a drawing or clash with watercolors that get added later. This J. Herbin brown, on the other hand, is beautifully balanced.  It works great as a brown that can play nice with most other colors, adding rather than competing.  It doesn't demand the spotlight but it's willing to step up when needed. 

Here you can see that the color works gorgeously both for line and with added water. There is no watercolor used in this drawing - just the Lie de Thé and a waterbrush, along with a gray brush pen for the distant buildings (see my next review, up soon.)  

There are so many beautiful colors of ink to use, but a well-balanced brown gets special points for versatility.  This ink is gorgeous on buff paper and white, with water and without, with added colors or on its own. If you're looking for a water soluble brown ink to sketch with, that will work for a lot of subjects and a variety of styles, the Lie de Thé will not disappoint.