Lamy Copper Orange & J.Herbin Gris Nuage
I am going to try some ink pairing over the next few weeks and work in some different tools/techniques along the way. This duo is a great first match – Lamy’s 2015 special edition color “Copper Orange” and J. Herbin’s “Gris Nuage” or Gray Cloud. Both inks were applied using a 3/8″ flat watercolor brush by Winsor & Newton on some Strathmore watercolor paper. While I usually go with mixed media or pen and ink paper when using a brass nib, I decided on the watercolor with a brush as it adds some interesting effects (some I like others not so much). The upside to watercolor paper is you can really play with layering the colors and seeing how the ink changes as you layer it on. The downside is that it can be so absorbent that the ink does not flow back up the letter much and blend very well – it’s a bit of a catch 22 if you’re trying to get nice smooth shading transitions.
On to the colors themselves – Copper Orange and Gris Nuage. The Copper Orange is pretty incredible but to see how it stands out you need to work pretty wet – as the color pools it shifts from a nice warm orange to an almost dark copper shade (compare the C or E with the O and S). It fairs a bit better than the gray when it comes to shading but not by much. I tried a second test on some Mixed Media paper with a folded pen I made. The shading is much better but one pass is about all you get on that paper before it breaks down – so no chance to play with layering color. Gris Nuage is an excellent choice if you are looking for a cool grey that starts off quite light and can be layered up to a solid medium gray with 2-3 passes. It suffered a bit more from flow issues on this paper than the Copper but it has no issues when you go back to more appropriate paper.
Both of these are solid inks and highly recommended – If you are looking for how they look in a fountain pen then I suggest checking out these pages from Goulet Pen Company to see examples:
J.Herbin Gris Nuage
Lamy Copper Orange
