Color of KWZ IG Gold in long-term storage

[Intensity]

Good day everyone,

 

I have a question about KWZ Iron Gall Gold (not Aztec Gold or Green Gold) ink hue range after it's been stored for a long time (months to years).  The reason I wonder is that I recently got an order of many different KWZ IG inks, some of which were purchased based on my sample testing back in 2017 and 2018.  I have a couple of sheets with some iron-gall-based ink swabs and writing samples from a few years back where I compared them for myself and did some tests.  Based on those sheets IG Gold turned into a kind of grayed straw color with just a hint of olive green to it.  It wasn't quite the color of a traditional straw, but it was fairly close, just a bit on the green side.  

 

The IG Gold I have fresh now looks dirty olive green upon oxidation, more toward the yellow side of the olive spectrum.  It's definitely quite strongly green though compare to my old writing samples, swabs, and washes on the very same paper.

 

I know from experience that some KWZ IG inks, as well as R&K Scabiosa, and really most of the IG inks I've tried, continue evolving over months or longer in storage--not just over the first 48-72 hours.  So far I've only had time to allow my new IG Gold to cure for two weeks.  Now I'm curious: is the olive tone going to go away to some extent to match my old sample?  I'm very picky about this specific hue, as I really wanted to get some straw-inspired ink hues, and at the moment it's more of toward a green olive than straw.  It's not as green as IG Green Gold, of course, but still the olive tone is very prominent.

 

Anyone here with IG Gold writing in storage that you could dig up and do a qualitative color analysis?  I would say anything that's not super-saturated, as it can end up looking too dark with overwhelming silver shine.  Does the green-olive tint become more muted over time?

[ENewton]

Alas, I cannot contribute to this conversation, but I would love to see what you mean by "the color of a traditional straw."

[Intensity]

This general hue range:

 

 

Dried grasses and herbs frequently turn into that general color.  It's kind of sandy, not too yellow, can lean slightly green or slightly orange.   My older aged IG Gold sample looks like the bottom picture stacks, but I'm just not sure if the sample itself didn't age well before it  got to me, as IG ink samples sometimes tend to do once decanted.  My fresh bottle is too olive and too yellow at the moment.

 

 I have an accumulated bouquet of various carefully dried blue flowers that I added to over time, which has been very stable for a few years.  The stems are all that dried sandy hue, and the various blue-purple flowers on top look really nice.  I was inspired to use an ink with that general appearance for more flower sketching, substituting that hue for green stems of fresh plants.

[arcfide]

My personal guess would be that the samples may have begun to precipitate slightly leading to a less authentic color. But I believe KWZ are also hand made inks, so they may have some variation from batch to batch. 

 

You might try decanting a sample of the new ink into an empty sample vial and letting it precipitate/age a little in the sample vial and then swab out a new test sheet to see if the color change matches your older stuff. 

[Intensity]

I ended up mixing a bit of IG Red #3 with the IG Gold, and now it’s perfectly what I wanted.  The olive tone was turned down, and the result is a complex beige.

[Tas]

Have we conversed about this one, or was it another ink?
My memory 😬

I've had KWZ IG Gold in my Homo Sapiens for must be about a year, the bottle since 2014 (it's around 1/2 full now)

Let me know. Happy to scribble something for you if I haven't done so already.

[Intensity]

5 hours ago, Tas said:

Have we conversed about this one, or was it another ink?
My memory 😬

I've had KWZ IG Gold in my Homo Sapiens for must be about a year, the bottle since 2014 (it's around 1/2 full now)

Let me know. Happy to scribble something for you if I haven't done so already.

 

Thank you, Tas, no worries!  I'm very happy with my modified IG Gold now, after mixing in IG Red #3.  (I also love IG Red #3!  Pretty much love every KWZ IG ink I got recently, which was a large batch.)

[Tas]

😊

[Karmachanic]

On 10/25/2021 at 4:11 AM, Intensity said:

 

Thank you, Tas, no worries!  I'm very happy with my modified IG Gold now, after mixing in IG Red #3.  (I also love IG Red #3!  Pretty much love every KWZ IG ink I got recently, which was a large batch.)

 

FYI. From this post by Konrad (Mr KWZ):

• Past experience has shown that most of Iron Gall inks produced by me can be mixed with standard inks of my production, as well as some other manufacturers. In preparing mixtures of any inks adequate caution should always be taken. Most of red, brown and purple inks should not be mixes with Iron Gall inks.

[Intensity]

They are both iron gall and both in a kind of brown category.  I’ve had no problems so far.

[Karmachanic]

And I hope the lack of problems, in this regard, continues!

I figured the info I posted would be helpful for those who may wish to mix IG inks.

[Intensity]

It’s fair, but I should note that the post you quoted talks specifically  about mixing their IG inks with their non-IG inks, as well as with other brands’ inks.  That post actually says nothing about mixing KWZ IG inks with each other.  So it’s not applicable to this scenario.