BY JOHN BUCKLER

Inks that were traditionally made by dye makers are these days made by chemists so the viscosity, colour fastness and consistency are all improved. Their better quality makes it even easier to mix your own unique blend to match your letterhead, or simply your mood.

With the narrowing range of colours locally available, now is a good time to get mixing. A basic selection of Blue, Black, Red and a Yellow lets you mix a full palette of colours yourself, using an eyedropper or plastic syringe. Some of the inks I use are probably 15 to 20 years old so they will keep stored for years.

Best quality brands available in New Zealand are Parker (always famous for its ink technology); Waterman and Pelikan which both have beautiful colours. Montblanc, Lamy and Sheaffer are also very good. Aurora produces the best Black bar none – the one I would recommend to a calligrapher as the most intense and colourfast.

Recent colours I have been using include a “Black Cherry” made with 5 parts Pelikan Red, 4 parts Pelikan Blue-black and 1 part Black – it’s seriously grown up with a little mystery. A “Terra Cotta” made from 7 parts Pelikan Brown and 3 parts Pelikan Red was a pleasing match for a terracotta-coloured letterhead and a joyous “French Blue” resulted from mixing 4 parts of the beautiful Waterman Florida Blue with 2 parts Waterman South Sea Blue.

Of the other bottled inks available locally, Lamy Red or Sheaffer Red are also fine choices. For that dash of yellow to make your mix zing, Herbin is the best light, citrus yellow (Passion for Paper, Auckland occasionally has this) but Caran d’Ache Saffron (through www.alphabeticagallery.co.nz in Wellington) is clear and intense.

Mixing ink is a lot of fun and seldom harmful. Flushing your pen regularly with room temperature water or between changes of ink will clear most ink traces, but also the tiny paper particles that stick between the nib and feed and then dislodge to cloud the next ink bottle they are dipped in. The one real rule is not to use drawing inks made with shellac as these inks made for brushes or “dip pens” will ruin your pen’s delicate feed channels and filling mechanism.