Hello ISW,

Good luck with that- I hope you find your Perfect Blue someday soon. BTW, do the Noodler's inks remain waterproof when you blend them with others- I thought I read you are not supposed to do that???

Best wishes,

Sean

I just chased a La Coleur Royale (deep bluish violet) with Golden Brown (Sonia Simone told me I should try adventurously mixing Golden Brown with strange colors). The result is a dark army green. It was very unexpected, but the blue (from the purple) + gold = green. I'm tentatively calling it "seaweed" but I want to try replicating it in a vial first before I post scans.

I mix Habanero with Beaver to make "Unsulphured Apricot" (you know, when dried apricots are all oxidized; doesn't happen when they add sulphur to them). This would be my favorite color, hands down, if only the ink wasn't SO NONWATERPROOF. Washes away completely.

I've only begun tinting inks that are unsatisfactory to me. Lexington Grey is perfect for this. (I like it to bring out the color that is otherwise too-dark in Sequoia). I plan to also darken Eternal Brown, and to unpurple La Coleur Royale so it can be the rich blue we all desire...

If the two inks don't have a chemical reaction with each other it has the effect of just watering down the permanent ink.

All of the Noodler's inks can be mixed with each other. So if you mix a non-waterproof or "bulletproof" ink with one that is and it gets wet then you just have the waterproof ink left. So if you have a 1:1 mixture of, say Noodler's Blue and Noodler's Black and you soak it in water the black will remain but it will be not as intense as it would have been if it had been Noodler's Black neat. And of course if you have a 5:1 ratio you'll get a gray line of ink, but that gray line will resist whatever you throw at it.

I mix the waterproof inks with non-waterproof all the time and then test them. They always remain waterproof even in their diluted state. Now if you get an ink that has a chemical reaction with the waterproof ink that may be a different story. The pH level of an ink can cause such a reaction.

Basically, I just mix and don't worry about it anymore, as long as the ink mixture can flow.

Just mixed two parts of Private Reserve Spearmint with one part Midnight Blues (also PR) and got quite close to the green I was looking for....This is FUN !!!

But, what do I put the small mixed batch into when I've finished with it????

Hmmmmmmm

Well, I suppose I mix inks, as when my Cobalt and Ft. Madison Skrip blues got low, I combined them. I suppose that eventually I'll wind up with a "stone soup" blue like Tytyvyllus' dregmix brown.

Wow! Another idea brought to me by FPN!
I am going to have a go at making my recently bought Waterman blue-black a little "blacker"!
I cleaned (or so I thought!) a pen to try it out and really loved the deep, dark blue. The long letter I began was pleasing to my eye on the cream paper, but by the end of my missive the words were a wishy-washy blue!
Now I have been inspired to mix a little Waterman black with the blue-black to see if I can reproduce the hue I liked.

I added some Quink Black to my Waterman Blue Black and it made all the difference. Be carefull though, you don't need much black.

I have about half a dozens mixes on hand, no measuring, I just randomly mixed things.

'Golden Ochre' - Pelikan Brown, PR Shoreline Gold, R&K Helianthus.
'Burgundy Soup' - Has about 10 inks in it, I was trying to make Penman Ruby.
Army Green - Herbin Vert Olive, Quink Black.
Army Green for Envelopes - Herbin Vert Olive, Noodlers Zhivago.
Saft Green (Matches my Omas) - R&K Alt Goldgrün, PR Copper Burst, Skrip Black.

My next mix will be R&K Helianthus and R&K Fernambuk/Morinda. I want a colour like Levenger Fireball with a hint more orange and no annoying feathering.

I also randomly mix things in cartridges. I had 1/4 of Blue left in a Pilot cartridge, so I topped it up with R&K Solferino.

The Saft Green sounds wonderful. (As does Melnicki's weird LCR/GB combo.)

I'm coming to the conclusion that I just like weird colors.

I just came back from the Salvation Army with a good bottle for ink...well, not perfect, but good enough....and mixed up a color that I like a lot.

If you have Private Reserve Spearmint and Private Reserve Midnight Blues, and you like a deep deep green, try

5 parts Midnight Blues to 2 parts Spearmint.

I'm quite pleased with it.

sonia_simone: I received my bottle of Stipula Moss/Musk Green the other day; it is so close to my Saft Green mix it's not funny.

I love it! Big 70ml bottle too! Very yummy.

I've just finished mixing 40% of Sheaffer sepia ink, or brown as many people say, with 60% of Lamy red to get a very nice copper tone.

i don't have time to mix inks, really. but once, i dropped by the mont blanc boutique looking for the bordeaux but it was out of stock, so i bought a bottle of ruby red and black, and mixed them together hoping for a dark red, and ended up with a magenta that i actually like.

I started mixing inks, but only within brands... My favorite mixes are:

1:10-15 Parker Quink Black to Parker Quink Blue, gives very nice deep ocean blue...

1:1 Pelikan Royal Blue and Pelikan red, gives light burgundy color, kinda nice...

1:1 Pelikan Red and Pelikan Black Blue, result is deep, kinda desaturated burgundy, closely resembling dried blood...


Nenad

I have Noodlers Golden Brown, which is a lovely color that very much lives up to its name, but I also want a darker brown, something like Noodlers Beaver but waterproof to some degree. So I made a 1:20 mix of Noodlers Black/Golden Brown and saw almost no change. I then mixed up a small batch of 1:10 and the brown is only every so slightly darker. So after that is used up, I'll try 1:5 and see how that looks.

Out of ignorance, I've been mixing a lot of Noodler's, Private Reserve, and Waterman of various colors. No problems that I can see yet. No gunk or precipitates that I can see.

I definitely concur with the sentiments expressed by Mike1 and Judybug that any ink I don't care for must be improved by mixing!!

The comments by Ink Stained Wretch about Noodler's waterproof inks being all that gets left after a dunk test of any mixture are right on in my experience. There's a lot of terrific and useful advice here. The more I learn, the more I want to try new mixes!!

Dennis

I like to mix one part of Pelikan's Royal Blue with one part of Pelikan's Blue-Black in order to get a really nice Blue-Black.

Best wishes,
diogenes

I have mixed to get a green and I have mixed to make PR Burgundy Mist a little "richer".

I definitely mix inks. My ink collection consists of about 10 or 12 bottles of ink. I have some basic blues, reds, a green or two, and a bottle of PR's Shoreline Gold. I find that - with this collection - I can mix just about any color I want. It's cheaper than buying a bottle of every color imaginable and there's no need to add a room on the the house to store a large collection of inks.

Judybug