Just for the fun of it, I occasionally resume my project exploring what happens when you move progressively from one ink colour to another. My hope is that some of these “inkshifts” result in interesting colours that I can use to write/draw with. And besides… it’s just fun to watch one ink colour morph into another one.
TACCIA Utamaro benizakura is too bright a red for me. On its own I would probably not use the ink again, so I decided to tone it down a bit. Fellow Fountain Pen Network member InesF suggested I try to temper the ink by mixing it with TACCIA Hokusai sabimidori. That made me curious… I had no idea what that would do to the ink. Well, only one way to find out, and that is to do the inkshift experiment.
In the span between the two starting inks some muted purples appear – ranging from rose-red to more of a violet blue. No great discoveries, although I like two of the mixes:
- The 10:1 mix of benizakura:sabimidori results in a soft rose-red that works much better for me than the bright benizakura original. That’s a mix I see myself using.
- The 1:5 mix of benizakura:sabimidori creates a nice muted violet-purple that I like a lot. But I enjoy the original sabimidori even more, and this mix would use up too much of that ink. So this mix is a no-go.
By now, I have a hunch that the brighter TACCIA asahanada (an indigo-blue ink) will react nicely with the blazing red benizakura. Maybe some more vibrant purples or violets? But that’s a topic for another inkshift experiment.
Above, you can see the progression of the chromas from benizakura on the left to sabimidori on the right . It’s quite clear that benizakura dominates the spectrum.
I continue to enjoy these ink morphing experiments. Fun adventures in ink-land, and more often than not you are rewarded with a mix that beats the original inks. Fun guaranteed!
[Originally published on the Fountain Pen Network, on 10 April 2023]
inkxplorations 