ink mix : Kung Fu Caine

[namrehsnoom]

Ink Mix – Kung Fu Caine

• 2 parts : Pelikan Edelstein Golden Beryl
• 1 part : Pelikan Edelstein Apatite

 

Pelikan Edelstein Apatite is the new Ink of the Year 2022. I knew it wasn’t my type of colour, but I collect these Edelstein inks, and so didn’t want to miss this one. Apatite is a really bright and in-your-face blue… a full page of it is just too much for me. I got the feeling though that it might be a nice base colour for some ink mixes. So I resurfaced Edelstein Golden Beryl – a golden yellow that works well with wet & broad nibs, but not so well with my usual F and M pens. I tried out some combinations in an Ink Shift experiment, and the current mix turned out to be a really beautiful yellow-green.

 

This yellow-green reminded me of the long grass in the garden, that is populated by those small green grasshoppers – almost invisible until they jump away. Grasshopper… that brings back memories... it was the nickname of Kwai Chang Caine in the 70’s TV series Kung Fu (played by David Carradine). As a kid, I really enjoyed this series, so I decided to name this ink mix “Kung Fu Caine”.

 

“Kung Fu Caine” is brewed by mixing 1 part of Edelstein Apatite  with 2 parts of Edelstein Golden Beryl. The resulting mix is a really beautiful yellow-green colour … a substantial improvement over the parents’ colours. This new ink writes fairly wet and well-lubricated (inherited from Apatite) in my Safari test pens. Contrast with the paper is good, even with EF nibs. Like Apatite, this Kung Fu Caine mix is a strong shader – not too harsh though, but aesthetically pleasing. I like this mix a lot!

 

To show you the impact of saturation on the ink’s look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of a piece of 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Kung Fu Caine has a medium tonal range. Contrast between light and dark parts is not too harsh, resulting in well-defined and elegant shading. 

 

The resulting mix has zero water resistance. Short exposures to water flush away all colour, leaving only some yellow-green smudges. This is also clear from the chromatography : at the bottom part, you can barely see where the original dyes were put on the coffee filter paper. A good ink for journaling, but not one for use at the office.

 

I have tested the ink on a variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. Below I show you the ink’s appearance and behaviour on different paper types. On every small band of paper, I show you:

• An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip
• 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
• An ink scribble made with an M-nib Safari fountain pen
• The name of the paper used, written with a B-nib Safari
• A small text quote, written with the M-nib Safari
• Source of the quote, written with a Pelikan M120 Green-Black with F-nib
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari)

The Kung Fu Caine mix behaved perfectly on most of the paper types I used, with only a tiny bit of feathering on the lower quality papers. Bleed-through was only present with the Moleskine paper, but even there it was not too bad. Drying times with the M-nib are mostly paper-dependent ranging from 5-10 seconds on absorbent paper to 10-20 seconds on paper with a hard surface. I quite enjoy the way it looks on the Paperblanks paper, which is what I use for daily journaling. 

 

The scan above greatly exaggerates the contrast in the shading. Below you’ll find a photo of the same writing samples, that gives a truer impression of reality.  A difficult ink to capture... the colour is more in the direction of the scan, the contrast is more like in the photo.  The colour is best captured in the more zoomed-in scans: B-nib detail, saturation swab, related inks...

 

Related inks
To compare this mix with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. Kung Fu Caine looks very similar to kyo-no-oto moegiiro and Diamine Meadow.

 

Inkxperiment – Embracing Diversity
I always enjoy doing a small drawing using only the ink I’m reviewing. Inspiration for this little piece comes from some pics I saw on Pinterest. People come in all kinds of hardware & software configurations… big & small, multiple skin tones, many belief systems, a multitude of personalities. On an individual level, I embrace this diversity, and I mostly enjoy my interactions with other people, regardless of inevitable differences. But scale up the group, and individuality is quickly wiped out and replaced by mob dynamics with binary thinking and loss of nuances. This never ceases to amaze me! Oh… and you may have noticed that I included a cat in the drawing… cats have personalities too!

 

For this inkxperiment, I started with a piece of 300 gsm rough watercolour paper and a 4x3 grid. I used water-diluted ink to fill in the background, and added some texture with Q-tips dipped in ink. I then used a piece of cardboard with pure Kung Fu Caine to draw the borders of the 12 rectangles. Next I drew in a variety of people (and the cat) with a glass dip pen. Final accents were done with my B-nib Lamy Safari. Yellow-green inks are usually very rewarding to draw with, and this ink mix is no exception. The resulting drawing gives you a good idea of what can be achieved with Kung Fu Caine in a more artistic context.

 

Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper. For this computational derivation, I zoomed in a bit on the inkxperiment picture, and used a colour scheme that adds some extra contrast to the drawing. 

 

Conclusion
Kung Fu Caine is an ink mix that really impressed me, and that’s definitely ways better than the original Apatite and Golden Beryl. It is a stunningly beautiful yellow-green that works well with all kinds of nibs and papers, and that is especially nice for drawing. Another great thing: you’re at the controls here: do you want the colour to be a bit more yellow or a bit darker green… just add a drop of Golden Beryl or Apatite to steer the mix in the direction you want. Fabulous!

 

 

Backside of writing samples on different paper types

 

 

[mizgeorge]

Brilliant! 

I haven't bothered with Apatite as it just didn't offer anything different enough, but I love what's happened to it now - despite it being a green that I really wouldn't normally gravitate to. I'd probably still want it to be a tiny bit yellower, but what a great idea.

 

Thank you for another inspiring recipe - and some lovely artwork too.

[inkstainedruth]

That looks like a nice mix.  I tried both Diamine Kelly Green and Diamine Meadow early on, and found both of them too light and too yellow for my taste.  And your blend appears to be darker and more legible than either of them.  

Thanks for doing this, namrehsnoom.  I'm usually too timid to mix inks because I don't want to fight with possible bad chemical reactions.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[InesF]

What a beautiful idea to blend these two inks and I like your presentation as well as your always inspiring drawings. Greta work, thank you!

 

While I like the outcome of the mix, I see the similarity to Diamine Kelly and/or Meadow. So I will go on with Kelly Green (which I love as a spring colour) and will stay away from both these Edelstein inks.

 

btw, do the lines written with the mixture shimmer?

[namrehsnoom]

On 9/5/2022 at 5:08 PM, InesF said:

What a beautiful idea to blend these two inks and I like your presentation as well as your always inspiring drawings. Greta work, thank you!

 

btw, do the lines written with the mixture shimmer?

Thanks for the nice comments.

My mix has no shimmer particles in it … I didn’t stir the bottle of Golden Beryl. One reason: my experience with the Golden Beryl shimmer particles was really bad: too big, clog the nib way too easily, and they had a tendency to get behind the piston seal (in my Pelikan M205 Demonstrator, still visible after several months). After that experience, I decided never to bother with glitter again.