What Adds Sheen?

July 16, 2015

I'm experimenting with inks I don't particularly like by themselves but might make something I could like. I think I've got a good mixture for a rich, woody brown that shades nicely, but it is completely matte with less than zero sheen. It's a different look, but I was wondering if there was something I could add to give the ink some sheen?

It's interesting in that the mixture is made up of inks with varying amounts of sheen, but together it all disappears and the ink is flatter than the paper. I've tried it on my normal papers and it doesn't make a difference.

July 16, 2015

Good question!

So far my investigations point to several causes working together towards a single point, that is dye crystallization on the surface of the paper. But it's more complex than that. First you need a dye that has a sheen, usually those looks like crystals with a metallic appearance, usually the more sheeny an ink is the more lumpy and less powdery it is. Second you actually do need to make the dye crystallize, that is to avoid it being absorbed by paper fibers and voids, this depends a whole lop on the complex system of paper/dye/ink phisiochemistry. But one of the factors that help with that is saturation, but not just that in itself, for a lot of supersaturated solutions will give no sheen at all, but usually the more the better regardless of the actual solubility of a dye (in my limited experience) so your best bet would be to look for highly soluble dyes. And finally do suspect that nucleation or seeding around impurities might contribute, likewise I've found that multi-dye solutions tend to sheen more easily.

Take rhodamine b for example, it comes in green crystals but you can't make it sheen even if you trow money at it; it's rather poorly soluble. Acid blue 1 comes in a black flat powder but it does sheen a little tiny bit you saturate the thing to absurd levels almost three times more than rhodamine. And then you have aniline blue ws which is a purple/red crystal which solubilizes as well as acid blue 1 and consequently sheens rather nicely but not as well as Acid Blue 9 which is used on most blue inks out there like Waterman.

Now that has very little to do with actual color. Acid Blue 1 and Aniline Blue are rather muted while Rhodamine B looks radioactive pink.

Frankly all of that is just speculation based on empiricism by a layman, this sort of science is way outside my field of expertise, but some basic scientific mindset helps

PS: You're loosing sheen by mixing inks because you're actually diluting your dyes, not your color. Ink 1 has A and ink 2 has B, both of volume 1, add the two and you have 2 of volume hence A/2 and B/2. Color theory and ink mixing is VERY non-intuitive, but it works (cyan plus magenta makes blue, sounds absurd at first), specially if throw in some basic math.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Canopus

July 17, 2015

Thanks for the answer. It is an interesting question. I suspect if we really knew the answer we could make all kinds of super-sheen inks. The ink I have that has the most sheen is a ink used for dip pens. It's thick and sits in three-dimensions on the paper. It almost like a reflective strip on the back of your bicycle jacket. It looks like the crystals are many and sit proud of the paper.

The brown I put together showed zero feathering, which was nice, and flows really nicely, but it's soaked right into the paper. I'll have to try it's water resistance.

If I'm diluting my dyes, would it help to use inks from the same manufacturer? Or would mixing fewer types together make a difference?

I'm finding the whole process fascinating. I remember additive and subtractive color theories from university and use them in photo color correction all the time. It's still as much an art to me as science. I use it but don't completely understand it. I was able to get this nice rich brown by starting with a slightly reddish brown and adding the right green to it, one with a lot of yellow. What was interesting was when I added a rich green (with a lot of blue in it, I'm guessing now) it turned into a black with some violet tinges.

So, I'm starting with Noodlers Galileo Manuscript Brown, the one that turned out to be very red, not the current one. When I added some Sheaffer Brown, and some J. Herbin Vert Olive plus a little Lamy black I got a nice warm brown, but no sheen. When I added just Private Reserve Sherwood Green it became Black Violet. But still had some sheen. But this is the fun of experimentation.

Back to the laboratory.

July 17, 2015

here's a scan. It's pretty close on my computer. It did shade quite nicely. This is on a scrap of HP Premium Laser #32. That's why you can sort of see writing from the back. But this ink does not go through the paper at all, but this is thick paper. I didn't notice any bleed through on my Black 'n Red notebook or Rhodia at all either.

July 17, 2015

Fascinating topic.

I'm a sheen junkie myself. In a relentless quest for black ink with sheen. Tried to mix a couple of sailor inks but the sheen vanished almost instantly as I did the mixing. I think the post about diluting your dyes in the mixing process is spot on.

Have you tried your brown mix on tomoe river?

I don't have any good mixing suggestions here, but I am very interested in learning more about the subject.

July 17, 2015

Well best thing you can do about color theory is not to try to imagine but rather to try it, fortunately there are some quite decent CMYK color tools online which can give you at least a direction to go. I think that I've nailed about 53 colors sans hues of near-black in a nice Rosetta drawing. Dusky colors as well as bourdeux are surprisingly difficult to get right.

That being said you need to take into account the actually coloring power of the dyes, Ponceau 4R is relatively weak, Tartrazine is absurdly strong. Yet on paper it looks the opposite because yellow is too hard to see against a white background, specially since Tartrazine is also very transparent. So a 1:1 mix will be orange instead of red, and a nice crimson will be 10:1 which one would imagine would make pink.

The brown looks really nice, a bit like a better version of Toffee Brown which actual red hues and a darker shade.

Currently I'm stuck with Acid Blue 1 and Aniline Blue WS because of my focus on iron gall inks, so I don't actually need vibrant colors, just pretty looking while wet. But I surely wish I could get my hands on a nice cyan dye like Lamy uses on the Turquoise... damn! That stuff is vibrant, on a broad an wet nib it looks like neon. It's not overly saturated but it doesn't show a ton of sheen, so I guess that it's not what most blue inks use.

Basic dyes are vibrant but they suck at light-fastness and stain everything, yet aren't permanent unless you use a mordant. They are also really finicky and totally unsuitable to mix with any other class of dyes, they will precipitate instantly... think BSB (which is not only that but a toned down alkaline quick drying ink because... reasons (you loose the permanency of metallic salts of the original Parker patent but gains stains ability along with a more vibrant color.) The Bernanke are probably just alkaline which is not ideal, but frankly there shouldn't be nothing too bad at all in them.)

But one advise I can give you is to do chromatography before mixing inks, so you actually know what dyes make them, this should minimize unforeseen results. That is also the only way to know exactly what dyes are you diluting or not. But frankly I doubt that will increase the concentration, one of the inks would need to be dramatically more saturated. To me I don't think it's a good route.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Canopus

July 17, 2015

Fascinating, Canopus. Thanks so much.

July 19, 2015

Taking a look at dyes that sheen I've found that the vast majority of them are basic dyes. This class of dyes can stain acrylic and other plastics, it's not 100% sure because that depends on the concentration and buffer as well as the specific dye use. So I think it's at least worthy to keep an eye on any ink that has a sheen other than red. Acid blue dyes appear to sheen red, and those are safe to use with acrylic, but they might stain nylon, like on the piston seal of MB and Aurora pens but then it appears that is vanishes with time.

Well if I'm correct on this, which I hope I'm not because I love sheen, is a bit of a shame actually. But then again it's not a 100%, rhodamine do appear to stain but only temporarily and very mildly. So it would be better to deal with it in a case by case manner.

Again I'm not saying that they WILL stain but that they MAY stain. I'm not saying NOT to use them but instead to keep an eye. Which should be given granted that most of the sheeny inks are well saturated anyways.