Having read a great many posts about Richard Binder's Blurple color, I followed the recipe by mixing 50% Waterman Florida Blue with 50% Waterman Purple in a small inkwell. I blended the mixture, using an eyedropper to suck up and mix the ink, then filled my Pilot Prera with it.

To my surprise, the resulting color would be termed by any observer-off-the-street as simply purple. Not much blue in it, and certainly not the color I was hoping for, which would be something between the two, a color that defied classification... so that no matter how long you stared at it, you couldn't decide if it was blue or purple.

My first thought it simply to adjust the mixture to 75% Fla Blue and 25% Purple or perhaps 80/20.

Any thoughts?

That's funny, I've been thinking about tinkering with the recipe for a while now. I find Blurple to be a blue-purple (at least in my mix) rather than a straight purple, but it is certainly heavily purple-influenced. I've been meaning to try fiddling with the mix, maybe 2:1 blue:purple, or even just 1.5:1. I'll give that a shot in the morning. If it works... maybe call it "Bluerple"?

I haven't mixed Blurple myself, but have seen scans of it, and seen Tanzanite many times, and have struggled with La Coleur Royale.

I think the thing with these bluish-purples (or purplish-blues) is that it all depends on what other colors are close-by. If there are a lot of blues nearby it will look undeniably purple, and vice versa.

I usually add some Glacier Blue to "unpurple" La Coleur Royale, and have played around with the proportions. I bet there's a most-appealing proportion that is different for every person, but what I've found is that it's a very delicate balance to get there...

I recently mixed 75% Quink Blue with 25% Quink Red, expecting the result to be a blue leaning toward purple/violet (I've never seen an official definition distinguishing purple from violet, but I understand that many fountain pen users distinguish the two). To my surprise, the result was a true purple.

If I was to attempt a Waterman Blurple, I would start with 12.5% Red, and then incrementally work my way upward.

Of course, I'm new to the idea of ink mixing, and I might be over-optimistic about the "work my way upward" notion. Who knows, it could turn out that 12.5% is still too much for a bluish purple. Obviously, you can always add more red (or purple if that's what you choose), but you can't remove what you've already added. This weekend, I'll use a 1 cc syringe, and start with 5 to 10% Waterman Red. I'll report the results.

GNL,

I mixed a batch of 50:50 Waterman Florida Blue and Waterman Purple and found it to be more of a true purple as well. I added more Florida Blue (75:25) until I got a color I liked. I finally went with PR Tanzanite as it is more vibrant ink color IMHO.

Regards,
Eric

I agree with you about Tanzanite. The color is gorgeous. Unfortunately, it has a dog-slow drying time, and the ink is therefore pretty much useless to a left handed overwriter like me. But it killed me to give it up.

I also mixed the Blurple and titrated with blue until I got the color I liked. Since then I tried Diamine Sapphire blue. It is perfect for me w/o the poor properties of Tanzanite. Give it a try and you will not be sorry.

Good heck, a titration? You're giving me flashbacks to chem lab!

I tested the 3:2 and 2:1 blue:purple combinations today, and I like the 3:2. It's going to look purple. Any red at all added to blue will give you some variety of purple. The 1:1 mix of Binder Blurple produces what I'd think of as a bluish purple, and the 3:2 mix I tried today gives me a purplish blue. It's a fine distinction, but I'm happy with it. I scanned a test page, but I can't get it to look anything like it does on the actual page, so I shan't bother posting it. It's worth a shot, though, if standard Blurple is a tad too purple for your tastes.

I'll probably keep both on hand, Blurple and Bluerple. I like both colors, and variety is good.

I also noticed something odd. Blurple doesn't seem to flow quite as well as standard Florida Blue, but the 3:2 mix does. Is there some lubricating property of Florida Blue that's too diluted in a 1:1 mix with Waterman Purple?

How would you characterize the "poor properties of Tanzanite?"

Do not get me wrong, Tanzanite is a lovely color but in my opinion, Tanzanite is almost to free flowing and I have had drying issues with this ink.

I've tried a variation of the Blurple mix -- only using Sheaffer's Skrip (Slovenian made) 4 part violet to 4 part blue, with one 1cc syringe of Swisher Midnight Blue to darken it up a bit.

Given that Skrip is cheaper than Watermans and I had the colors on hand, it was worth a try. The result was a color more on the violet side of blue, but its an ink that behaves itself well on crappy paper and dries fairly quickly.

Finally got a bottle of Diamine Sapphire Blue. Not as vibrant or saturated as Tanzanite, but close. Sapphire Blue behaves very nicely. I like it very much!

I thought it was "burple."

Richard changed the name, but of course I can't find the msg. someone with better search skills may offer.

Nope. The official name was "Binder Blurple"^®.

nope, couldn't be...
that's one of my ancient kindergartener riddles...
"What's the color of a Burp?"
>>>think think think, eyebrows furrowed... clear? no... >>>think think think, eyes big & wondering... invisible?
no... give up?
yeah..

"it's B u r p l e!!!!" little giggles break out, sounding just like Thumper when he slides across the ice while holding his toes..

p2p...missing the little sweeties...

Ps.. "What's invisible & smells like carrots?"

A rabbit burp?

Ps.. "What's invisible & smells like carrots?"[/quote]

A rabbit burp? ...
[/quote]

nope... bunny toot
p2p

Ps.. "What's invisible & smells like worms?"

OK p2p. I've got it this time. A bird toot.

Ahh.. the mind of an adult!

No.. it's a Bird Burp!

p2p... enjoying a momentary age 5 redoux

Darn.