Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Ink Mix Recipes

Based on VegasPens' (Darlene) question on Twitter: "What kinds of inks do you like to mix together?" Mabeloos asked me to combine my ink mixes in one post for her reference. Actually some of these I learned from The Fountain Pen Network, some via trial and error:

BLUE-BLACK
5:1 Parker Quink Blue to Parker Quink Black make a great Blue-Black that doesn't turn teal.


GREENY-BROWN
3:1 Parker Quink Green to Waterman Havana Brown was inspired by Herbin's Lie de The. If you don't like "muddy" old-fashioned colors, this might not be for you.

DARK MAUVE
3:1 Rotring Brilliant Red to Rotring Brilliant Blue make something not quite purple but lovely and retro-looking when used in a Pelikan.

DARK GREEN
3:1 Parker Quink Green to Parker Quink Black to make something close to Herbin's Vert Empire or Noodler's Zhivago. You can add more black by the drops to your preference.

FAUX TANZANITE
2:1 Parker Quink Blue to Waterman Purple to "tame" the purple.

AUBERGINE
3: 1: 1/2 Rotring Brilliant Red to Waterman Purple to Parker Quink Black/Waterman Black. You can try using a brighter red, like Waterman or Parker Red, and it will come out looking like what I'd call Roasted Cranberry. Without the black, I call it Alugbati, which is the purplish berry of a Philippine leafy vegetable we used to wear as "play lipstick" when we were little kids.

Please use a syringe, and write each recipe down in your notebook with a writing sample as soon as you get the color you like. Please do not mix alkaline inks with other inks, and most of all, please do not mix iron gall inks with other inks. Please do not make any quantity larger than 3ml so that when you get tired of it you can recreate the color without wasting ink.

To refill empty cartridges, use the syringe and reseal with a drop of hot glue from a glue gun. Try not to make too many cartridge refills since they do eventually evaporate. Always put in ziploc bags when storing in your handbag to avoid staining your other items.

Of course I always write this advice down but I never seem to make the writing samples with the reviews and the q-tip swabs and the F/M/B comparisons because I prefer to write snail mail and other longer things.

I hope this has been useful!

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