Ink making lesson #1

I was making up a couple of batches of ink yesterday from my new pigments-- Mars orange (love those iron oxide inks) and bottle green. I put some of one pigment in a bottle, then the other pigment in the other bottle. I added the right amount of gum arabic to one bottle, then to the other bottle. I picked up the first bottle again and started shaking it up. Then I noticed: Why is the gum arabic turning my orange ink green? Or is it turning the green ink orange? Then I galnced at the remaining bottle: it was full of gum arabic, no pigment. I had just mixed the two batches of pigment together. With a lot of colors this wouldn't be so bad-- orange and green, though, yech.

Actually, it isn't so bad. Kind of an earthy greenish brown. Still, be warned, O Novice Inkmakers: mix only one batch at a time, from beginning to end.