The color gray has a serious PR problem. According to Wikipedia, people see it as the color of boredom, conformity, and indifference. While it’s easy to overlook gray inks in a world full of vibrant blues, greens, and oranges, doing so would be a mistake. Gray ink can imbue your words with refinement, subtlety, and depth. For artists, gray inks can be more versatile for drawing and sketching than black inks, allowing the creation of lighter or darker effects by layering or varying the intensity of their pen strokes.
With the gray season of winter coming, now is a perfect time to take a look at some of our top gray ink recommendations, then dive into an in-depth comparison of all our gray fountain pen inks.
As you can clearly see from the samples above, gray inks are far from being all the same. Unlike other colors, which can be divided into sub-colors, the best way to divide up gray inks is by tone and temperature.
All of the five inks listed above also stand up well to highlighting, as do Caran d'Ache Infinite Grey and J. Herbin Gris Nuage.
Interestingly, many artists actually prefer low water-resistance gray inks like Diamine Grey because they can be used to create cool wash effects with a water brush:
It’s time to give gray the respect it deserves! If you’ve never tried using gray ink before, we hope we’ve given you reason to reconsider this too-often underutilized color. Do you have a favorite gray ink? Let us know in the comments below!