Waterman Ink Mixing Experiments - 6 In All.

[mshepp3]

Good Day Fellow Fountain Pen Hobbyists and Collectors

 

First of all, if my little venture here has already been undertaken, I am sorry about that. ;I went looking, but hey... there are over 700 pages of Inky Thoughts on the FPN website!

 

Basically, my inspiration for what follows was Richard Binder's Tanzanite mix of 50 / 50 Waterman Serenity (previously Florida) Blue and Waterman Violet... which I really enjoy.

 

Here is what I have tried so far and the names I came up with. ;Please, please, please... If you try any of these yourself and have a better / more accurate idea of what to call it, I am all ears.

 

Working from the basic palate of the 8 Waterman colours of: ;Black, Blue-Black, Serenity Blue, South Sea Blue, Violet, Red, Green, and Havana (brown), this is what I came up with...

The first and (to me) most obvious blend to try was 50 / 50 South Sea Blue and Green... to take your basic turquoise in a more green direction. The result (I find) is somewhat greener than what is commonly called Marine, so I am calling it Aquamarine. ;I quite like it. ;It makes me think of one of the many colours of the water at Horseshoe Bay back in my native Bermuda. Pen used: ;An old (W. Germany) Pelikan M250 with a Medium steel nib.

 

I also did a kind of swab test using a G.U.M. Soft Pick... Bet you didn't see THAT ONE coming! It actually works quite well and in fact, I have done this same test for all the mixes which follow. The technique I developed was to lay down a patch of the two (or sometimes more), component colours a centimeter (half inch) or so apart, and then drop the blend right in between them

 

The next thing I tried was to see what resulted from a 50 / 50 blend of Black and Blue-Black.  The resulting colour was so dark that I added the same amount of Blue-Black in to it again, thus making it 33.33 Black and 66.67 Blue-Black. That ratio was lighter, but still very dark... Waterman Black is - I guess the term would be:;pretty saturated. Accepting the limitations of my computer/printer, I am tentatively calling this colour: Deep Dark Twilight*. Pen used; Parker Centennial with No. 94, Medium Italic nib.

 

At this point, I tried a third experiment... a 50 / 50 mix of Blue-Black and Serenity Blue. ;This one I have dubbed: Steel Blue, but as with any and all of the above, I am open to suggestions ;And here it dawned on me that I needed to reduce the amount of ink I was using for each new blend, so instead of 10 cc's for each colour, I stepped it down to 2 cc's. Pen used: ;Peilkan M800 with Mottishaw prepared, Italic Broad nib.

 

I then needed to free up a container for my next experiment, so I mixed the results of the previous two mixtures together, again using the Pelikan M800 to see what it looked like. ;The components of this new, lighter blend are: ;Black - 10 cc's, Serenity Blue - 12 cc's, and Blue-Black 22 cc's.;*This colour is more of a true Twilight, I think.

 

For the (I thought) final blend du jour, I decided upon ;Havana and Red... again a 1 : 1 ratio or 50 / 50 mix . ;At first, I was calling the result Oxblood, but as it dried, I elected to change it to: ;Ancient Copper Brown. ;Pen: ;Parker 45 with a Medium nib reground to a Stub Italic by Michael Masuyama.

 

As I was putting together the immediately above, I was simultaneously considering trying a 50 / 50 mixture of South Sea Blue and Serenity Blue, but when I put the swabs of each down near each other, I realized that the green in the South Sea would likely not get along very well with the red in the Serenity Blue... Maybe down the road I will try it just to see if my suspicions are correct.

 

Another potential blend I am highly skeptical of at this point is Blue-Black and South Sea Blue, and for much the same reason

 

I then considered trying a 50 / 50 Serenity Blue and Red blend, but decided that would likely be largely indistinguishable from Violet... Again, maybe some time in the future I will confirm my theory on that front.

 

My actual final experiment for the day was a 50 / 50 mix of Violet and Red. ;The result was a bit of a surprise in that it was more brown than I would have predicted.;THIS colour, I think, is closer to Oxblood. ;Pen used: ;Pre-2008 Parker Sonnet with stock 18k Stub Italic nib.

 

Well, there you have it. ;Now, I have a feeling I know what you all are going to say... DUDE!... This is no good! ;Where are the photos?!!

 

I have to apologize... my luggage was (and I still am) slightly overweight coming back to work (in the KSA) this past month and I left my good digital camera behind in Canada. ;On the other hand, perhaps this will encourage some of you to actually make some or all of the above mixes, and having it right in front of you will definitely enhance your ability to accurately determine what each new colour is, and thus what it should be called.... Just trying to look for the silver lining, eh?

 

Thanks for reading this, people...

 

One love, MS

Edited September 7, 2013 by mshepp3

[amberleadavis]

We need photos to really appreciate the wonders of the mixes. Thank you for the descriptions!

[kronion]

We need photos to really appreciate the wonders of the mixes. Thank you for the descriptions!

+1

[carlos.q]

We need photos to really appreciate the wonders of the mixes. Thank you for the descriptions!

+2

There is a rule in the FPN that says: "Photos or it didn't happen."

[mshepp3]

OK, OK, OK... You are right, and I have heard this "Photos or it didn't happen" rule before. I have a friend who is not TC* like I am... he is away right now, but I will enlist his aid shortly and finish what I started. Thanks for the gentle prodding!

 

* Technologically Challenged

[kronion]

OK, let's play! This is my first experiment of this sort, I hope you find it interesting. The images are done with a simple scanner, but I am surprised how well the colors on my screen resemble reality, so I post them anyway. The paper is standard copier paper.

My starting point was: Waterman Inspired Blue is too intense for me, although I really would like to use it more often as a more interesting blue. I wanted to tune it down a bit and tried mixes with Waterman Serenity Blue and Lamy Black.

The mixes are different combinations in a 2:1 ratio to keep it simple. All samples were written with a glass dip pen, the line is therefore very thick in the beginning and gets brighter afterwards, the last bits should be more like in a fountain pen. The scan does not show that mix 4 (WIBl:LB 1:2) shows a hint of green - but it is really little.

http://i.imgur.com/aon63Knl.jpg

(larger: http://i.imgur.com/aon63Kn.jpg)

and here come some swabs:

http://i.imgur.com/K6XVTRgl.jpg

(large: http://i.imgur.com/K6XVTRg.jpg)

The mix with 30% Serentity makes the Inspired Blue just fine for my normal use, but I like the teal-colors with black as well. I decided to put the WSBl:LB (2:1) into my Parker IM to try it under realistic conditions - I find it a tad too green and I will try a 1:1 (WIBl:LB) ratio next.

 

[amberleadavis]

Ooo ... very nice. Thank you.

[Bill Wood]

Love that. In your swabs - third from the top, second row - what inks and what ratio's. Looks like a wonderful teal. Well done !

 

I think it's Waterman Inspired Blue / Lamy Black 2:1 ? correct. Thanks

[MisterBoll]

Love that. In your swabs - third from the top, second row - what inks and what ratio's. Looks like a wonderful teal. Well done !

 

I think it's Waterman Inspired Blue / Lamy Black 2:1 ? correct. Thanks

 

That's the one that was calling out to me as well. Wonderful color.

[Blue_Moon]

Are there any problems with smoothness and flow when mixing Waterman inks with other Waterman inks? Also, I'm assuming that, since Waterman makes wet inks, the result for any mixture would be wet.

 

To the OP, when you say, "Violet," are you referring to "Purple/Tender Purple?" Just checking, because I'm fairly new to Waterman inks.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Blue_Moon

[mhosea]

I don't speak for the OP, obviously, but I've never heard of a different ink that could be referred to as such. Waterman "Purple" was renamed to "Tender Purple" not long ago, and I don't remember what the new bottles say (haven't taken one out of the box yet), but the old bottle was labelled

 

ENCRE VIOLETTE

PURPLE INK

 

On the painter's color wheel I'd guess it's more like "purple-violet", so take your pick.

 

Edit: The new bottles say:

 

Encre Violet Tendresse

Tender Purple Ink

Edited December 5, 2013 by mhosea

[WJM]

One thing I once tried was mix of Serenity Blue and not-so-Intense Black, ratio 4:1 I think. The effect was a really good blue-black, much better than Waterman's "official" blue-black (Mysterious Blue, or rebottled Parker Quink Dark Teal, I mean Dark Teal, I mean "Blue-Black").

[inkstainedruth]

Waterman Mysterious Blue is a very strange ink ("mysterious" is a good name for it ). Much more paper and pen dependent than almost any other ink I've ever tried. I had people at a pen club meeting a few years ago absolutely convinced that the ink was *green* because that's how it looked on some paper. And I was going "nope -- I know what's in this pen...." Even when it looks "blue-black" it is more teal on some paper than others.

OTOH, I just refilled my 1937 Parker Vacumatic Red Shadow Wave yesterday, after foolishly letting the pen sit too long between uses and it started right up. And I've run that ink in that pen without any sort of maintenance or flushing for over three years (in that pen, with a fine nib, it's really more of a very dark teal tinged blue-black, but tends to lean a bit more blue than teal).

WJM, I would love to see a side by side with your mix and regular Waterman Mysterious Blue.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[WJM]

Mysterious Blue is a very nice ink if you like the color, but personally I'd prefer a more classic, typical blue-black, and in this category the mix is much closer to what I'm looking for.

 

Here's the mix - Serenity Blue and Intense Black, 4:1

 

 

 

And here's Mysterious Blue on the same paper