The Well-Appointed Desk

As a long time reader of this site, I’m honored to share my experience mixing waterproof inks! I’m Thien-Kim, a romance novelist, amateur artist, and coffee addict who refuses to count how many bottles of ink she owns. Thank you, Ana for having me!

I blame my cats for my obsession with waterproof fountain pen inks. Neither of my cats are the type to spitefully knock cups over, but they had their quirks. The main culprit was Pixie (who crossed the rainbow bridge last year). Instead of the fresh water bowl we set out for her, she preferred drinking from water glasses on my desk. But not before sticking her paw into it to “test” it. 

She then proceeded to walk all over my notebooks with her wet paws leaving my handwritten words a blurry mess. Tomoe River Paper was her favorite. She was an adorable menace with great taste in paper.

As a novelist who starts most of my drafts by hand, I needed fountain pen inks that could stand up to Pixie’s wet paws of destruction. I didn’t want to lose my precious words when it came time to type them up.

Why CMYK Color Theory For Inks

And so my journey into 100% water resistant inks began. I easily found black and blue, but where were the bright, fun colors? Then I stumbled upon watercolorist Jane Blundell who had color mixing charts for De Atramentis Document Inks, which are nano-pigmented fountain pen inks. I made an order for 4 mixing colors, a small price of admission into mad scientist ink mixing.

As a hobby watercolorist, it was tempting for me to buy up all the different colors of De Atramentis Document Inks. However my bank account and my limited storage space disagreed. Thus I purchased the core mixing colors that printers use: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. (I have no idea why they use K for black ink). It’s very similar to the Red, Yellow, Blue we were taught in grade school.

Theoretically, I could mix whatever colors I wanted with these four. I also knew I’d have fun creating my own colors and possibly mixing Wearingeul shimmer potions into them. I would have fun inks that were also waterproof! I would never need to buy other inks again. cue mad scientist laugh (Spoiler: I still buy inks.)

I fell in love with De Atramentis Document inks because they’re super saturated, wet inks that behave well in extra fine to broad nibs. Several years later, I still mix my own waterproof colors and teach workshops to indoctrinate encourage others to do the same.

Earlier this year Diamine introduced their line of Forever Inks which are also nano-pigmented. Diamine inks have always behaved well for me, so of course I had to try them out!

Color Mixing: Diamine Forever vs. De Atramentis Document

 

When my bottles of Forever inks arrived, I decanted them into dropper bottles the same way I did for my De Atramentis inks. Because I mix inks so often, it’s easier for me to have individual droppers for each color. Plus the droppers allow for more uniform drops which allow me to document my mixes for future reference.

For my semi-scientific test, I started off with a 1 to 1 ratio for each mix and increased the drops in increments of two before swatching. You can see my results in the photos below. I used a paintbrush to swatch on Sanzen Tomoe River Paper (2023 version).

Diamine Forever Inks used: Skyline, Hot Magenta, Solar Yellow (approximately $20-25 per 50mL bottle) 

De Atramentis Document Inks used: Cyan, Fuchsia, Yellow (approx $20-22 per 45mL bottle)

On the top half of each page are the Diamine mixes while the bottom half are the De Atramentis. It was a very zen process.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I found the De Atramentis inks to be similar in saturation to each other which made for less ink to make the colors I wanted. 

Diamine Forever inks varied with a higher saturation for Skyline than Solar Yellow and Hot Magenta. Because Skyline was stronger, it took more of the latter inks to get the same colors in De Atramentis inks. 

Diamine Forever seems to have more sheening while DA inks are more even/consistent. Not good or bad. It depends on what you’re looking for. For both brands there is a point of diminishing returns where adding more of one color doesn’t make that much of a difference to the naked eye. 

The next steps for me are to use Diamine Forever in my finer nibs to see how they behave. I’ll also draw and paint over it in my visual journal. As I mentioned earlier, Diamine makes well behaved inks so I have no doubt they’ll work well.

For now I’ll stick with De Atramentis for my experiments and in the student kits for my Mad Scientist Ink mixing workshops.

If you’re headed to the DC Pen Show, I’m teaching two workshops:

• Mad Scientist Ink Mixing where you’ll receive a kit for hands on mixing
• Intro to Visual Journaling where you’ll learn how to document your ordinary life with drawings and words.

Thanks again, Ana for having me!

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Thien-Kim Lam (she/her) is a queer romance writer, book coach, and sex educator. She likes her coffee strong and her fountain pens flexy. Learn more about her work at www.thienkimlam.com and on her Instagram.