Make Your Own Dual Shading Inks!

[msilverton]

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!

Edited May 16 by msilverton
Typo

[Sailor Kenshin]

This is wild, thanks.  Wonder how it would work with a glass dip pen?  

[finzi]

Oh my toes and whiskers… 🤯 

[Penguincollector]

This is worth exploring with the Sailor Hocoro, although I would have to buy 4001 red. 

[msilverton]

If you don't have Pelikan Red, Diamine Imperial Purple makes a great alternative and a more pleasing shade of purple. You'll have to dilute quite a bit and not add as much: 10 ml H2O, 1 drop of Blue #1, 4-5 drops IP.

 

 

 

[Penguincollector]

  Ooh, I do have that one! Next time I buy groceries I’ll get food coloring and try it out. 

[Karmachanic]

We know Mrs Stewart's Liquid Bluing is safe.

[msilverton]

Thank you @Karmachanic. After reading that thread, I'm sold on a bottle. I can't wait to try it out. I love dry inks, especially those that don't feather on cheap paper.

[inkstainedruth]

@msilverton -- Very interesting experiments.  

I agree that some of them would be too light on the page for my taste; and (on the off chance I ever do play around with this) and I would *definitely* be using distilled water (my tap water is very hard, and I don't like the idea of that sort mineral buildup on my nib and feed just in general after looking at my faucets....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Penguincollector]

Just remember to avoid using Liquid Bluing in pens with 14k gold nibs. In the thread linked above, there are links showing corrosion.

 

[msilverton]

What I want is one full spectrum ink that can write every color in the rainbow. Impossible? That’s what I used to think. But I was wrong. So forget the food coloring and feast your eyes on what this one ink can do. You’ve never seen anything like it.

 

Blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, and red.

 

 

All the above was written on TR and Kokuyo paper, but how about Rhodia?

 

 

 And regular printer paper? Still looks good despite a little bleed out of the yellow.

 

 

Now to the most important question; what does it look like in a regular fountain pen with a stub nib? Pretty nice! You can definitely see more than two colors going on, but it just doesn’t stretch them out like a flex nib. They tend to pool only on the very edges with each pen lift.

 

Tomoe:

 

 

Kokuyo:

 

 

Rhodia:

 

 

Printer:

 

 

 

So finally, what’s in it? Simple: 4 ml of Mrs Stewarts Bluing with 10 drops of Pelikan Red. That’s it. Add less of the Pelikan for a blue/yellow ink or more for purple/orange/red. Thanks @Karmachanic!

 

Once you experience this ink for yourself and see it with your own eyes you won’t be able to use any other for awhile. I look at my ink collection now and all of them pale miserably in comparison. I just can’t stop writing with it. This is the kaleidoscope ink I’ve only seen in my dreams.

 

I’ve been impressed too by the very fine hairlines it can produce. It’s on par with any walnut or pure iron gall ink I’ve ever tried.

 

 

And water resistance? Impressive. After a 15 min soak the dye predictably washed away but the blue didn’t budge.

 

 

The only issue I worry about is permanence. I know food dyes aren’t going to last, but I expect a pigment to be much better. However, watercolor and oil painting forums are full of people bemoaning the lightfastness of Prussian Blue. And it is not selective to one brand. Even top-shelf M. Graham has been known to fade. According to most accounts, pure PB is totally lightfast, but when mixed with other pigments it has a tendency to fade. Does this include dyes too? Even the miniscule amount of Pelikan added to this one? And how long does PB take to fade? Reports vary from a week to several months depending on UV exposure. However, why would @amper (referenced in the thread above) continue to use MSB for more than ten years? Surely she would have looked back and noticed her writings were not legible anymore and switched to a different ink. But apparently that is not the case as her most recent posts were still recommending it. I’ve tried to contact her without success.

 

Admittedly, I only have a couple weeks experience using MSB, so there is still so much I don’t know and understand. But one thing is certain, Prussian Blue surely is a weird and wonderful pigment. J

Edited June 1 by msilverton
Spacing

[msilverton]

 

 

 

 

 

[Mechanical]

Fabulous, @msilverton! 

 

I've put this combo on the list for my ink chemistry lab (bathroom sink).  I don't have the Pelikan red, but I'll be trying out a mix with Pilot red ink.

[msilverton]

Excellent @Mechanical. I'm very interested in knowing if other reds can work with MSB as well. 

[creeder14]

Beautiful! Unfortunately Mrs. Stewart's isn't available anywhere local to me, but I've placed an order for a bottle of it, a bottle of Pelikan Red, and some of that food coloring to boot! This "magic ink" is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Makes me really want to get an old Italian steel flex nib to put through its paces!

[msilverton]

Thanks @creeder14! You can try the food dyes (Blue #1 is best) but they don't show anywhere near the shading of MSB. They were my first try at making dual shading inks and when I look back at them now, they pretty much all suck.

 

Yep, go with that flex nib for maximum shades that will astound you.

 

I've been using the MSB and Pelikan straight up full strength so far. I haven't even tried diluting them yet and that's where most shading inks really show up. What's that going to look like? Hmmm.

[msilverton]

On 5/18/2025 at 8:20 PM, Penguincollector said:

Just remember to avoid using Liquid Bluing in pens with 14k gold nibs. In the thread linked above, there are links showing corrosion.

 

 

I just performed a test using MSB and an old busted 14k gold nib. The test did not show any evidence of corrosion, just a slight stain that ended up wiping off with a dilute ammonia solution. I dropped an old Waterman's Ideal New York 2 nib with a broken tine into full strength MSB and submerged it about halfway for 7 days. I opened the vial once a day and left it loosely capped to allow oxygen in but not enough to allow the ink to evaporate. After a week I removed the nib, washed it off with dish soap and let it dry. The remaining tine broke off when I scrubbed it with a toothbrush. I was expecting to see much corrosion, similar to what iron gall ink does to a steel nib, but I could see no evidence of corrosion at all through my loupe; only the stain that ended up coming off. I really don't know what to think. Maybe I didn't leave the nib in long enough? Surely after a week some evidence of corrosion would have appeared. I am not recommending people start putting MSB into their gold-nibbed pens. I am only submitting the results of my test, which possibly could be flawed in some way, though I don't know how. 

 

These are not the best pictures, but I think they provide enough detail to show the results.

 

Before:

 

 

During:

 

After:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kestrel]

I wonder if substituting diluant (basically ink with no dyes added) for some of the distilled water would reduce dryness.  I guess I need to get some Pelikan Red.

[msilverton]

I've never heard of diluant and didn't know such a thing exists. What's in it?

[OCArt]

@msilvertonThanks so much for doing this test. I think your procedure was well thought and well done.