Idea of mixing different colours to obtain another colour is well known for every one since childhood and many of you surely did it several times. Everyone knows basic rules about RGB palette and man of you are familiar with CMYK scheme, right?

Not going much into details and physics behind the light and colour theory, the RGB colour model (used in TV and computer CRT, LED screens) is additive in the sense that the three light beams are added together, and their light spectra add, wavelength for wavelength, to make the final color’s spectrum. This is essentially opposite to the subtractive color model (CMYK) that applies to paints, inks, dyes, and other substances whose color depends on reflecting the light under which we see them. Because of properties, these three colours create white, this is in stark contrast to physical colours, such as dyes which create black when mixed.

In CMYK, C =cyan, Y = yellow, M = magenta and K stands for black. In theory cyan, magenta and magenta are enough to generate all colours including black. The additional black K colour is used only for practical reasons.

At some point in the past (not that long time ago) when the spectrum of the fountain pen ink colours available in the market was nothing like now, I was experimenting probably as many of you with inks to get something new, fresh and exciting beyond standard royal blue, red black or blue-black. Sometimes results were quite satisfactory, but quite often attempts did not end so well. There were always missing colours (like yellow) which helps to generate much brighter and vivid colours. Nowadays, fountain pen ink manufacturers offer tons of different colours, which is great!

You already can find the BlackStone CMYK Ink Kit with a set of four mixable inks which blended in different proportions allow to create any colour you may think, especially if you are familiar with so called ‘Colour wheel’ concept. Colour Wheel s an illustrative organization of different colour hues around a circle, which shows the relationships between primary colours, secondary colours, tertiary colours. These are regularly used by artist which can easily generate their own wheels based on paints they have, however if you do not know how to do one do not worry, you can buy these wheels in most art supply/ stationery shops.

Recently, Nick Stewart who is a creative designer, artist, calligrapher and educator from the historic Rochester, England designed and released his set. The set contains four unique inks, which stand up as four beautiful unique fountain pen inks each with their own personality and chromatic behaviours but also have the ability to blend with each other and create secondary and tertiary colours.

In Nick’s set the four colours are not pure cyan, magenta, yellow and black, but suitable to create a complete palette of secondary and tertiary colours. His intention was to create a custom made, high quality fountain pen inks for colour mixing, and intended for journal illustration and painting to bridge into the arts and promote fountain pen ink as a creative medium. Idea behind is also to have a set of inks you can take with you for a journey and use on a go. You can simply draw or paint in the journal as you like.

Set contains : Berber Blue (C-equivalent), Dune Yellow (Y -equivalent), Desert Rose (M – equivalent) and Twilight Black (K – equivalent) inks.

Each ink from the set can be used separately as a standalone fountain pen ink for writing. The colours are well saturated and perform very well.

OK, enough of talking. Let’s take inks, experiment with them and do some magic. Possibilities are endless.

…three parts of cyan mix with two parts of magenta and one part of yellow. To maximise effect, add pinch of powdered bat wings, one squashed witch eye and burned ghoul ashes for a twist. Here is what I got..

I must admit, Playing with Nick’s set was a great fun and I really enjoyed. You definitely should try it too.

The set of 4 inks costs £.20.00 , which in my opinion is a fair price. Set can be ordered directly from Nick Stewart site.

It seems that, we need someone who can invent a fountain pen with four independent CMYK containers and adjustable mixing chamber. This could be so cool! Isn’t it?

The future of inks and fountain pens looks bright!

More about Nick’s ink (read)

(*) Disclaimer/ I have no affiliation with the all brands and companies mentioned above and this short review reflects only my personal views and findings about the product.