When a complimentary ink chart from Pendemonium arrived in the mail, I saw the wide variety of ink colors that J. Herbin makes for fountain pens. The chart showed some colors that reminded me strongly of the primary inks used in standard four-color offset printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. I immediately wondered if these could be mixed to create other colors. A little experimentation has shown me that you can mix Herbin colors pretty easily. By varying the recipe you can get an astonishing array of colors.

primary colors · caveat inktor · mixing procedure

cyan + yellow · magenta + yellow · cyan + magenta
cyan + yellow + black · red + yellow · cyan + red

mixing waterman and herbin

Primary Colors

The four-color process used for color printing nowadays relies on cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks, usually abbreviated as CMYK. The Herbin colors that seemed closest to the process colors are:

cyan	=	bleue pervenche
magenta	=	rose cyclamen
yellow	=	jaune bouton d'or

On their own, these inks are quite marvelous. The cyan is a really bright turquoise ink, almost too intense for writing. The magenta is also eye-popping. I found that it has a tendency to feather a bit more than the other inks, but in mixtures this tendency is reduced. The yellow is bright and simple, and has been used as a highlighter color in very wide-nibbed pens. I haven't used it on its own.

I did not use the Herbin black in my experiments. Instead I used Pelikan brilliant black, which I had on hand. I'm guessing that the kind of black used will have an effect on the resulting colors but haven't pursued this.

I did find it helpful to also have the Herbin red (rouge caroubier) on hand, to compare its reactions with blue and yellow as well. In some cases I found the red to work better than the magenta.

Caveat Inktor

The Herbin bottles say to never mix two different inks. I don't know whether this is a marketing ploy to encourage people to buy their varieties, or a legal ploy to avoid litigation from people who think an ink mixture has damaged a pen. I did a little Internet research about mixing Herbin inks and most people agree that these inks mix fine with each other and with other inks.

To be on the safe side, I am mixing my inks in small glasses and storing the creations in separate bottles to watch for any bad reactions, such as "sludge" or "gunk." I'd be glad to learn from anyone who finds problems mixing Herbin inks with each other or with other inks.

I am also going to follow the Herbin advice of rinsing my pens well between fillings and especially when changing colors. The Herbin inks seem to be very free-running, but I figure frequent rinsing can't hurt.

I bought an Aurora Idea pen and converter for about $35 to use for testing the new inks. If you want to do your own experiments, consider trying the results in a pen that is not one of your prize possessions.

Mixing Procedure

I used glass eyedroppers for each ink and mixed drops into some tapered vodka glasses. I dipped cotton swabs in the mixtures for about five seconds, then paused for about five seconds, then drew two swatches on a 25% recycled ivory laid paper from Strathmore.

After scanning the images, I eliminated the ivory tint of the background, but you can still see the ridges of the pinstripe pattern in the weave of the paper.

As with Greg Clark's ink sampler, the swatches can be somewhat deceptive because they may contain more intense concentrations of dye than you will find with actual use in a fountain pen.

My experience so far has been that the Herbin inks behave like watercolors: they lay down wet, but then they dry with nice soft effects and a variety of light and darks that makes it clear that the line has been drawn with a fountain pen. The slightly washed-out look may not appeal to everyone.

In the charts, you may find some rows that are lighter in effect. These occur when the number of drops I used to make the mixture wasn't enough to saturate the cotton swab. In some of my later experiments, the top row is more saturated than the second row because I doubled the number of drops of each color in that row.

The combinations in each row feature the same number of drops, and you'll see that as I decreased the amount of one color I increased the amount of another color. This seemed like a logical way to approach mixing simple recipes of two colors. Of course, this doesn't give every possible combination, but you can interpolate missing ones.

I didn't start with 1:1 because you can see 2:2 and 3:3 in my charts. Likewise, I didn't do a row of 2:1 and 1:2 mixes because you'll find those colors as 4:2 and 2:4 in the third row of my charts.

Cyan + Yellow

Bright greens are made by mixing the bleue pervenche and jaune bouton d'or inks. You can really see in this chart what Michael Richter in his discussion of green inks means by medium green in the middle, with turquoise greens on the left and grass greens on the right.

I'd say that the 6c:1y mix shown at the lower left is virtually indistinguishable from Herbin's verte réséda ink. Perhaps the 1c:6y mix at the other end is similar to Herbin's vert pre.

I made a jar of the 4c:3y mix and it is a kind of bright green. See below for my experiments adding black to achieve dark greens.

Cyan + Yellow + Black

The top row of the chart below shows what happens if you add one part black ink (I used Pelikan brilliant black) to all the combinations in the third row of the green chart shown above. I found that these were too dark for what I was looking for.

I couldn't make "half a drop" of black ink, so instead I doubled the number of drops in my recipes and added a single drop of black to those. The second and third rows of the chart show the results, with intervening recipes added as appropriate.

The second row contains the "bottle greens" -- these all have more cyan than yellow. The third row contains what might be called "moss greens" -- these have more yellow than cyan.

The 8c:4y:1k recipe in the center was the "bottle green" look I was seeking, so I've been using that in a pen. Eventually I may try out commercially available dark greens, such as Bexley's Harmony Green or Private Reserve's Sherwood Green, to see if they have better performance or opacity, but this 8c:4y:1k recipe is workable for me in the interim.

Magenta + Yellow

I was surprised to find that I got somewhat muddier colors when I combined magenta + yellow than I did when I combined red + yellow. The colors are somewhat subdued. The scan looks better than the actual colors.

I recommend mixing red + yellow instead of magenta + yellow if you are looking for a really bright orange.

Red + Yellow

Bright oranges result from mixing rouge caroubier and jaune bouton d'or inks. The scan here is a bit deceptive; the colors at the right are in reality a bit more yellow in tone.

The 3r:4y mix is the one I chose for Halloween use. In a pen, it comes out looking a little less intense. It also has a nice property of drying slightly darker than it lays down.

Cyan + Magenta

Mixing bleue pervenche and rose cyclamen creates a nice variety of tones ranging from turquoise to indigo to violet.

I made a small jar of the 2c:5m mix and in a pen this comes out as a soft purple, not as rich as the violet inks that are available, and paler than Herbin's violette pensée, but nice.

Cyan + Red

Mixing bleue pervenche and rouge caroubier creates subtler tones, which I might characterize as blue, purple, and red slates.

I haven't tried any of these in a pen, but the ones in the third row of my chart look like good candidates.

Waterman Blue + Waterman Red

Since I was in a mixing mood, I decided to see how my Waterman Florida blue (bleu effaçable) and Waterman red inks work together. Here is a quick chart.

The 4b:1r mix is a blue with a slight purple tint to it that I like and have been using. It dries a bit lighter than it lays down, but is more robust than Florida blue on its own.

I'm sure that I'll try some of these other mixes. It's clear that you can get a crimson fairly quickly this way, even without adding black.

Waterman Red + Herbin Yellow

I also tried mixing Waterman red with the Herbin yellow. The result of a 1r:1y mix was a pretty fiery red. The yellow seems to punch up the color and make the appearance of the line smoother and less grainy, but it's still definitely a red.

Waterman Florida Blue + Herbin Yellow

The results of mixing Waterman Florida blue with the Herbin yellow were unattractive to me: very dark greenish blues and olives that I did not wish to pursue. I'm guessing that Waterman South Seas blue is probably better to use when trying to make greens.

I'd be glad to hear from anyone who is also experimenting with mixing Herbin inks, so try your own recipes and let me know what you come up with!

William I. Johnston
wij@world.std.com
October 2001