How To Make An Ink Slightly Darker?

[cskroeze]

Hey All,

 

If this question should be in the Ink Recipe section, please let me know!

 

My question is rather simple though: How do I make an ink slightly darker than it is? I figured that mixing it with some black ink would do the trick, but HOW MUCH BLACK should I add to change the color only a little?

 

The ink that I want to make darker is a beautiful brown, Noodler's Kiowa Pecan that I recently received in a great trade. The black that I am thinking mixing with it is Noodler's Zhivago. They're both from Noodler's and have similar flow characteristics.

 

I thought about taking a 1oz sample of the Kiowa Pecan and slowly adding some of the Zhivago, testing each time, until I get the shade I'm looking for, but I think it's really easy to over do it and go too dark!

 

Any advice?

[TheRealScubaSteve]

How much black is determined by your eye. Take 4 or 5 ml of ink in a sample vial and add black until you think it's enough. Calculate that amount for the bottle. You should be adding drops rather than ml.

 

Noodler's Zhivago looks black, but there's a lot of green in it.

[Cyber6]

+1 What Steve Says..

 

 

Zhivago to me is a very dark Green. I am guessing you will get an olive color more than just a darker Kiowa Pecan.

 

 

When mixing with a darker color.... ALWAYS do it by drops.

 

 

 

C.

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

 

As you are blending medium Value Brown and very low Value Green, perhaps 15 Kiowa Pecan + 1 Zhivago.

 

I tend to steer clear of such lopsided ratios, especially as most of us do not have precision measuring thingies, so fine tuning a recipe would require working with relatively large volumes.

 

Ms Fussy added her tuppence worth about working with lopsided ratios (blending with Black) @ Post № 7 https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/255652-tips-for-a-beginning-mixer/?p=2824580

 

Bye,

S1

Edited May 22, 2015 by Sandy1

[Davros]

Yeah. I actually have precision measuring equipment, but won't use less than a ml of the smallest quantity of ink for lopsided mixes. The results of a tiny variation when using such a dark ink can be pretty dramatic. These variations can come from you, the ink, or your equipment.

Do you have a darker brown in a similar hue? I would start with that instead.

[jmccarty3]

All this makes we want to go back to the old Fisher Scientific catalog and order a bunch of beakers, graduated cylinders, pipettes, and a magnetic stirrer. Apart from the cost, though, I have no space and no time. It's good to be reminded that saturated inks need to be shaken before filling.

[Hedgehogs4Me]

On another board I actually got an interesting suggestion to use Noodler's Heart of Darkness to darken my Noodler's Beaver; HoD has a slightly brown tone to it so it doesn't take away as much of the brown colour. I mixed mine about 4 parts Beaver to 1 part HoD and got a pretty nice result for use in my Metro F - I actually think it looks more like "walnut ink" than Noodler's Walnut does, and it certainly behaves better for me!

That being said, what I did was not making it slightly darker, it was making it much darker. You're probably looking at something more like 1:10 or 1:20 to start off with, so like the others said, doing it by drops is probably a good idea.

[Medsen Fey]

All this makes we want to go back to the old Fisher Scientific catalog and order a bunch of beakers, graduated cylinders, pipettes, and a magnetic stirrer. Apart from the cost, though, I have no space and no time. It's good to be reminded that saturated inks need to be shaken before filling.

Given the batch to batch variation I have seen with some Noodler's inks I'm not sure it is practical to try to make a very precise formula.

[jmccarty3]

Given the batch to batch variation I have seen with some Noodler's inks I'm not sure it is practical to try to make a very precise formula.

 

Good point. Might be worth it with some other inks, though. Too bad we have to spend so much of our time trying to replicate inks that are out of production.

[Sandy1]

Given the batch to batch variation I have seen with some Noodler's inks I'm not sure it is practical to try to make a very precise formula.

 

Hi,

 

Given that most Noodler's inks come in 3oz bottles, I would consider it 'practical' to spend the time to make use of the ink by blending.

 

If there is concern about batch variation, kindly consider holding back a wee vial of the source inks from the blending process. Those can be used as comparison exemplars for any subsequent ink purchases, so if there is batch variation, one will know that the recipe needs a do-over.

(Due to reformulation of some inks to be REACH-compliant, a goodly number of my recipes became defunct. )

 

Perhaps the most significant thing is that those who want to follow a recipe should be aware that if it includes ink prone to batch variation then the recipe may not turn out as intended. As Members are quite quick to point-out variations due to 'wobble' and/or reformulation, one can do their own assessment by checking the Inky Thoughts and Ink Review Fora for such variations subsequent to the date of the recipe.

 

I found the experience of blending inks can range from being very rewarding to a phenomenal time waster, so is an adventure unto itself, and I often learn something along the way.

 

Bye,

S1

[eyesa]

For a darker version of Kiowa Pecan, I'd try a mix of
15x or 20x Kiowa Pecan (a warm mid-brown in tone)
3x #41 Brown (dark, permanent brown)

1x of Noodler's Black or HOD
As others have said the Zhivago is a green black, and the green in it will kill or neutralize the reddish warm tones in the Kiowa Pecan. I'd go slowly, a drop at a time and clean and test each formulation. You can always add more if not dark enough, but can never subtract. Good luck on this. Sounds very interesting.

(x= drops)

Edited June 2, 2015 by eyesa

[tonywalker23]

I'm new here... only have one other post introducing my pens and fp story.

 

I was curious how to make a brown ink darker, so before I made a new post i did a search a saw this thread...

 

I have the following inks, all Pelikan 4001: red, green, blue, brown, black. I put the brown ink in my cafe creme (fine) to use in a brown journal. The brown ink is a little more 'tanish' than i was hoping. I was hoping for it to be a little more chocolate-y than tan. Would adding black make it chocolate or should i just buy an ink brand that offers a more diverse range of colors?

 

thanks for any advice.

[Chrissy]

I would do any testing in sample tubes, with really small samples using plastic pipettes. Mixing red and green inks will make brown, but then you might only need to add black one drop at a time if you wish to darken it.

[Biber]

Having been there and done that I can advise you to proceed with caution as mixing inks is voodoo! Darkening an ink isn't always a matter of simply adding a touch of black. Bear in mind how the constituent colors will combine to effect the hue. Not all blacks are created equal in that regard. Many have a blue component that will react with the yellow component often found in brown giving a greenish tint. Even relatively neutral blacks tend offer some sort of secondary hue to the mix. So go slowly and see what you get, only hope for success don't expect expect it. That being said I've had luck darkening Diamine Golden Brown with a touch of Lamy Black.

[beak]

Adding black is likely the wrong way to achieve the results you want. A darker green is not a green which contains more black necessarily.

 

Black is often merely a very dark shade of another colour - often of blue - according to the elements from which it is made.

 

Since you are looking for just a slight darkening, I would study a colour wheel and try adding minute touches of the first colour's complimentary. Also, if you do decide to add any black, thin it out on white paper to try to see if it has a colour cast, and use a black based on a similar colour to the original or one with no detectable bias.

 

ETA

are you psychic Biber! - we must have been writing at the same time.

Edited January 7, 2016 by beak

[KyleKatarn]

L'Artisan Pastellier makes a very large number of inks that can be mixed together due to their formula and neutral PH. Yesterday I produced a very nice sample of a darker blue, departing from Bleu Mediterranée and adding a bit of Violet. Asides from this brand, I think the key is to experiment, in small 5 ml sampling vials and employing the utmost care in order to avoid contamination of any of our precious inks.

 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/600x600q90/905/e5sSN5.jpg

[etaylor33]

I got a sample vial of Diamine Autumn Oak which was so light and hard to read, that I flushed almost a full cartridge. Today I needed to refill my Prera and looking over my samples I noted my A.O. was almost enough for a full load and my Ancient Copper had a few drops left, maybe 4 to 6 drops. I dumped the A.C. into the A.O. and gave it a shake or two then loaded up my cleaned up Prera. Not bad, it has shades of A.C. but is a couple of shades darker than Autumn Oak. I like what I have enough to use up the cartridge. Not accurate, exacting mixing, but for the first time mixing, on the spur of the moment, on the fly, not bad results. Doesn't take much of one color to change another.

[ReadyFireAim]

I have been using 20 drops = 1 ml. in my mixes in case I want to scale up.

 

So 2 drops in 1 ml. is 10 to 1

 

It seems to be working out for larger batches.

[Chrissy]

I regularly use a 50/50 mixture of Diamine Ochre & Diamine Burnt Sienna

[Mercian]

I have the following inks, all Pelikan 4001: red, green, blue, brown, black. I put the brown ink in my cafe creme (fine) to use in a brown journal. The brown ink is a little more 'tanish' than i was hoping. I was hoping for it to be a little more chocolate-y than tan. Would adding black make it chocolate or should i just buy an ink brand that offers a more diverse range of colors?

 

thanks for any advice.

If you would like a 'chocolatey' ink, Private Reserve sell a colour called 'Chocolat' and Diamine sell an ink called 'Chocolate'.

And there are, of course, many many other shades of brown to explore :-)

 

There is no rule that says that you 'must' restrict yourself to only buying inks from one manufacturer (even if all your pens are made by that company), and most people find that their favoured shades of different colours come from different manufacturers.

E.g Diamine Chocolate is my own favourite brown, but my favourite blue-black is made by Rohrer & Klinger, and my favourite black by Noodler's.

 

I also use different inks for different purposes - washable blues are great for certain uses, but for others I want the more-'permanent' features offered by iron-galls or 'bulletproof' inks.

 

I advise you to have a good read of the Ink Reviews forum, paying attention to properties of ink other than just colour - e.g. 'shading', water-resistance, lubrication, dryness ,etc.

 

And be warned: looking for your 'perfect' blue, brown, purple, green, or red ink is certainly fun, but it is also habit-forming :-D