Hello,

Please post your experience with diluting inks. Any brand of ink and any color. Please include the recipe/ratio of ink and distilled water (or whatever). Why you diluted that particular ink: to increase dry time, to increase flow, etc. Also, what are the climate conditions you live in/encounter when writing, we all know humidity can effect things hugely. Any other pertinent info is encouraged, usual pen, paper, nib, etc.

Hopefully this thread can be a resource like the ink recipe thread that people can refer to. Please try to be as thorough, clear, and accurate as possible. Thanks!

InkShift – Mont Blanc Royal Blue to Irish Green
 
Just for the fun of it, I occasionally resume my project exploring what happens when you move progressively from one ink colour to another. My hope is that some of these "inkshifts" result in interesting colours that I can use to write/draw with. And besides... it's just fun to watch one ink colour morph into another one. 
 
I recently did a quick InkFlash review of Mont Blanc Irish Green and Royal Blue. For me, both of these are just “meh” colours. Or as the Oxford dictionary states “uninspiring and unexceptional” – but “meh” captures my feeling better. As such, I don’t see myself using these inks too much, and the bottles would just be gathering dust. But here comes the InkShift, were I mix them together and see what comes out. Could be some more interesting colours in there. Who knows… only one way to find out, and that is to do the inkshift experiment.

 
In the span between the two starting inks some interesting colours appear, that certainly cater more to my taste than the original bland inks. I particularly like the mix with 75% Royal Blue and 25% Irish Green, which gives a dusty & muted blue that looks real interesting. And the 1:1 mix is also quite nice … more of a murky green-leaning teal. A few interesting combinations, that certainly save these bottles from oblivion.

Above, you can see the progression of the chromas from Royal Blue on the left to Irish Green on the right (with the 75/25, 50/50 and 25/75 mixes in between). 

I continue to enjoy these ink morphing experiments. Fun adventures in ink-land, and more often than not you are rewarded with a mix that beats the original inks. Fun guaranteed!
 

Hello everyone, 
hope to find you well. 
I tried mixing two Montblanc inks. To be precise MB Irish green and the MB permanent black in 3:2 ratio.

This is the result.

What do you guys think?

On a whim I decided to mix 7 drops of hongdian purple, 8 of sky Blue and 2 of blue black and I am quite happy with the results. It seems well behaved with a little shading. The only other modification I might make is to throw the tiniest bit of antique silver or rose gold mica powder in it. I welcome feedback. Thanks!

P.S. written on CVS Caliber paper

I made my first mix. I know it's very basic, but I wanted to darken Noodler's #41 Brown a little so I mixed 4 brown to 1 black. I like it and now it is more acceptable for me to use at work. 

I have a number of small amounts of Waterman inks.. Can I mix them all together?  I have mixed Waterman Blue with their green for a hunter green.  I just thought about combining all my little amounts into one bottle.  I realize it might be a "mud" color.

V.

A guy at our club gave me an 80cc bottle of Diamine he was going to throw away. it was "too dry" for him so he added a drop of some detergent. He didn't even remember if it was a washing machine of dishwashing soap. bottom line is he gave me the bottle, it looks normal, but when I use it on any paper that is not TR it will bleed through and feather unless I write really fast. So either I find a way to "dry it up" or its use options are greatly diminished. Anyone got ideas?

I have decided to decant a portion of my bottle of "Kaweco - Smoky Grey" ink and combine it with finely ground silver shimmer particulate used in the fashion industry for body-glow effects. 
I am currently deciding how to blend the particulate into my sample of fountain pen ink so that clumps are not created. 

I hope to post photos of the process once I get everything started later. 
I am hoping even more to post positive results!! 
I think i will try it in an alternate pen...my PenBBS 385 should work nicely. If it survives without getting clogged, I'll repeat the process in my OPUS-88 Demo with "Caffe Crema" and I'll be good to go!

I know you're probably saying "Well Detman, there are tons of grey shimmer inks out there for purchase, why not buy one?"
Well, they either don't match my shimmer-color needs...or the main ink is too dark....or they're too expensive...or they are just not easy to find.
Such being the case wiith "Diamine - Moon Dust" being so dark and not light enough...and "Pelikan - Moonstone" becoming hard to find
All of these factors have led me to try to make my own light-grey\silver-shimmer ink.

More to follow...

My inspiration: 

-DM-

http://www.taskyprianou.com/fpn_teeling_mix_rambling_1.jpg

http://www.taskyprianou.com/fpn_teeling_mix_rambling_2.jpg

http://www.taskyprianou.com/fpn_teeling_mix_swatch.jpeghttp://www.taskyprianou.com/fpn_noodlers_ellis_island_swatch.jpghttp://www.taskyprianou.com/fpn_kyonooto_no1_nurebairo_swatch.jpg

Ink Mix – Depuydt Green

• 2 parts : Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite
• 5 parts : Pelikan Edelstein Golden Beryl

A colleague of mine is entering retirement shortly, and I wanted to present her with a personalized greeting card for this occasion. And to make it even more personal, I decided to create a special-edition green colour using a mix of the Pelikan Edelstein inks Tanzanite and Golden Beryl. I tried out some combinations in an Ink Shift experiment, and the current mix turned out to be a beautiful muted moss-green. And because it’s a personalized ink, it gets her name: “Depuydt Green.” 

“Depuydt Green” is brewed by mixing 2 parts of Edelstein Tanzanite  with 5 parts of Edelstein Golden Beryl. This mix resulted in a stunning muted grey-moss-green colour that totally fits my taste and that is worthy of the occasion. For the writing samples in this review, I used a mix without the Golden Beryl shimmer particles. For the drawing, Golden Beryl’s golden shimmer was allowed into the mix (and I must admit that it works quite well within this Depuydt Green). See below for a swab with the golden shimmer particles included.

This new ink writes fairly wet and well-lubricated in my Safari test pens. Contrast with the paper is excellent, even with EF nibs. This Depuydt Green shades nicely too – not harsh, but with a soft presence and aesthetically very pleasing. I like this mix a lot!

To show you the impact of saturation on the ink’s look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of a piece of 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Depuydt Green has a medium tonal range. Contrast between light and dark parts is not too harsh, resulting in soft and elegant shading. For me, the sweet spot for this ink lies in the less saturated range – which translates to dry-writing pens and/or finer nibs. I prefer to use this mix with EF/F/M nibs, where the moss-green colour comes out the best.

The resulting mix shows fairly good water resistance, undoubtedly inherited from its Tanzanite heritage. Short exposures to water flush away the yellow component dyes, leaving a blue-grey residue behind that remains perfectly readable. This is also clear from the bottom part of the chromatography. This added water resistance makes Depuydt Green a good ink for use at the office. 

I have tested the ink on a variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. Below I show you the ink’s appearance and behaviour on different paper types. On every small band of paper, I show you:

• An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip
• 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
• An ink scribble made with an M-nib Safari fountain pen
• The name of the paper used, written with a B-nib Safari
• A small text quote, written with the M-nib Safari
• Source of the quote, written with a Pelikan M200 with M-nib
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari)

The Depuydt Green mix behaved perfectly on most of the paper types I used, with excellent behaviour all-around. It even works with the notoriously bad Moleskine paper: just a tiny bit of feathering, but you still get bleed-through (so you won’t be able to use the backside of the paper). Drying times with the M-nib are fairly short in the 5-10 second range. The ink looks good on both white and cream-coloured paper, but the muted grey-green look works best with pure white paper.

The scan above shows a bit too much yellow. I therefore add a photo of the same writing, which is almost spot-on colourwise.

Related inks
To compare this mix with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. Depuydt Green looks fairly similar to Graf von Faber Castell Olive Green (which has a touch more yellow in the mix).

Inkxperiment – A History of ICTS
I always enjoy doing a small drawing using only the ink I’m reviewing. In this case, the inkxperiment was used on the invitation card for the thank-you party we’re organizing. The drawing summarizes the history of our university’s IT department. Its origins are pictured in the circles on the left: the University Computing Centre (abbreviated URC in Dutch), the Computer Science group and the Administrative Information Processing group (abbreviated AIV in Dutch). These groups merged over time to form the current IT department (ICTS in Dutch, symbolized by the pyramid on the right – and written out in ASCII code on the pyramid), with Annemie as our CIO. With the help of all our co-workers, we built a smoothly running organization that is prepared for the future. Our department’s one-liner motto’s are enscribed in Pigpen cypher code on the drawing. Oh… and you may have noticed the little fisherman in the drawing … it’s not always work-work-work, we sometimes take a break 😉.

For this inkxperiment, I started with an A4 piece of HP photo paper. I taped out the pyramid and some other parts with washi tape, and used water-diluted ink to fill in the background, with a darker region at the bottom. After removing the washi tape, I used a piece of cardboard with pure Depuydt Green (with shimmer particles) to draw in the lines – resulting in a nice shimmer effect. Next I drew the circles on the left and filled circles and pyramid with ink. I added the circuit-board lines with a dip pen and bleach (this ink mix reacts really well with bleach). Finally I drew in my co-workers, and added the capping stone to the ICTS pyramid (which symbolizes the end of a career). The result is a one-image history of our university’s IT department, that also shows what can be achieved with this Depuydt Green ink mix in a more artistic context. In my opinion, this ink is simply great for drawing!

Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper.

For this computational derivation, I applied a couple of filters that zoomed in on the main subject, and added a mosaic of colours, that I toned down to a more muted pallet. The end result is not too bad, but in this case I like the green original more.

Conclusion
Depuydt Green is an ink mix that really impressed me: it is a stunningly beautiful muted moss-green that works well with all kinds of nibs and papers, and that is especially nice for drawing. Fabulous! 

Yesterday I made my first real mix. I wanted a light icy blue so I mixed Liberty's Elysium with Whiteness of the Whale (the only white I have, hehe).

It turned out like this:

Ice blue mixture by tannie, on Flickr

It feathers slightly with an M nib

slight feathering by tannie, on Flickr

I like the shading

Untitled by tannie, on Flickr

Written in my midori blank notebook

1.9 nib

Blue by tannie, on Flickr

Written in a watercolour moleskine.

Yes, it is possible! And cheap too. So let’s do it.

Fill a sample ink vial with 4ml of H2O. I’m using distilled, but you can use tap. Go cheap.

Add ONE drop of Blue food coloring. Make sure it’s FD&C Blue #1, that’s the key:

Now add six (eyedropper) drops of Pelikan Brilliant Red. What? Why not just use the Red food coloring? I’ll explain that later:

Mix well. Don’t shake it like it’s on fire like I did and get a bunch of bubbles. I was getting excited:

Test it on some good quality paper (Tomoe River):

I’m loving those shades of blurple with hints of green. Trying it out in a fountain pen:

It’s a bit light in the fountain pen but most dual shaders usually are. The good thing about this method is you can vary how dark it is just by using less water.

Let’s make more colors, so split that sample vial into two:

Depending on your tastes and how red you want this next color to be, add 2-3 more drops of Pelikan to your second vial and mix well. That should have purpled it up good:

It’s a pretty nice color, but I’m going to add another milliliter of water to the second vial just to lighten it so the shading can show through more:

That’s better. Really gorgeous:

And that’s it! That’s all there is to it. So easy and cheap. Here are some more examples of what you can do with this one food color dye and this one ink:

Life Bank paper shows some of the finer shading details:

Now, back to why I didn’t use the Red dye and instead used Pelikan Red. It turns the bare blue mix greenish with one drop and brown with two drops. See for yourself:

I was expecting purple but when green and brown popped out I had to find something different and the Pelikan was the only other red ink I owned. Except for Diamine Oxblood with a pH of 2 point something. That was not going into the mix. I wanted as neutral an ink as possible and the bird just fit the bill. But I haven’t given up on the Red dye yet. Even though it seemed to kill the multi-color gradients, unlike the Pelikan which gave color but didn’t dominate the tone (maybe because it’s so dilute itself?), I still think it’s possible to get some nice shading out of it. A word about the other colors in the set; green was just a mix of blue and yellow, nothing special there despite many trial runs. And the yellow was just kinda yucky. It formed crusts on the top of the bottle which spread all over my desk when opened. I’ll experiment further with it, but only with a dip pen.

But hey, if you want to forget all the mixing and shading and just use the Blue #1 straight up in a dip nib, it has some excellent sheen. It really is the blue ribbon winner in this pack of dyes which cost TWO DOLLARS.

Wet:

Dry:

Lastly, these are mostly play inks and good for art. Not to be taken too seriously as some can be very light and hard to read when you fill a page with them. That said I’m not looking for any of these to be permanent or endure spills or harsh weather. I’m not going to fill out my Last Will & Testament with them either.  

But a final disclaimer so fifty people don’t jump on here and lay me down for ruining their expensive pens: There is always the risk of sludge or precipitate forming when mixing different dyes or brands or stuff like food coloring which are not exactly meant for fountain pens. And although I do seriously believe that this Blue #1 is in a lot of the dual shaders and just plain regular inks out there because it’s just too close appearance-wise and too magical of a dye, I cannot say for certain that it will not drop sludge if you mix it with your favorite ink. Add slowly and remember if you want that magic shading; dilute, dilute.

The good news is I’ve had three Manuscript pens filled with different variations of these for a couple weeks now and they still write every time. Don’t even have to prime the feeds. Turn them upside down and they just write. YMMV. And if you’re worried or unsure, don’t do it. Don’t risk a good expensive pen. Try it in a cheaper one first, like a Pilot Parallel pen. Wish I had one of those actually. I bet it would make some fabulous shades!

I seem to have here some Black Swan in... uhhh... Icelandic... ummm... something blue. Minty bathwater?

Dry time is good, waterproof beyond reasonability for the color, and oh, at least on Rhodia and Clairefontaine, that shading...

Still working on this one, but it's coming along nicely enough that I'd share it as a preview. Shown here on Rhodia.

Hello everyone,

I have started experimenting and making some homemade inks for dip pens. I have had some success in particular with black walnut (dark brown) and indigocarmine (blue). However, I have been struggling to find a good preservative. I have tried rubbing alcohol and salicylic acid, but both affected how the ink wrote afterwards on paper (generally by causing more feathering). So, I was wondering what type of preservatives you all use for your homemade inks or what the industrial ink makers use.

Thanks in advance.

hello all, I suspect that i might be barking up the wrong tree here but is there a well-know, relatively safe way make an ink "wetter"?

i've seen some mention of eye drops being used, i think because of glycerine or glycerol in the drops, but can't seem to find supporting evidence that that's a safe route to go.

anyone have knowledge of this, or something similar?

i do understand that it's going to depend on what inks are in play but i thought i'd start with the general question first.

Does anyone know of any AI program (or any other software) which is able to analyze visual input (like images of ink swatches), text from the Internet (properties of inks from ink reviews and ink brand websites, like saturation, vibrancy, viscosity etc.) and also has some knowledge of ink mixing; so that one may give it a list of available inks with themselves, along with a prompt to give an idea about the type of color and property they would like to create. Based on this the tool might suggest ink recipes based on the capabilities described above. I am new to ink mixing and I have almost 70 inks, such a tool would be of immense help, I feel with the technology level in the world right now, this should be possible. If any dedicated software for this purpose is not available, do anyone of you use something else for a similar purpose in a slightly different manner? Anything would be a great help. Searching for ink recipes on the Internet by myself is very time consuming and also less accurate.

The recipes out there for India Ink (Encre de Chine) for use with a dip pen and nib seem simple:  carbon, water, and a binder,  I have tried two solutions that didn't work:

100g of carbon black powder, distilled water to get to the right consistency, 25% by volume of a dissolved gum arabic solution.   Carbon wouldn't stay suspended in solution AND, when dry, the carbon would rub easily off the paper.   The gum arabic was mixed by me -- probably not at a high enough concentration.

Tried 10g of carbon black powder in ONLY my gum arabic solution.  Better (but not perfect) adhesion.  And on the wet side of things, carbon also immediately began to precipitate out of solution.

Clearly, my binder isn't bindy enough, OR my carbon particles are too large (or both).  I have recently purchase some shellac chips and denatured alcohol.

Any recipes, tips, tricks or hints for the beginner?    My first reaction was that Black Cat is cheap enough by the quart that it might not be worth the effort.  But having started down this rabbit hole, I have a certain need to see things through.

For those who don't visit reddit i want to give credit to discovered how to make the ink