[Rockhounds] Ink coloring minerals

[Rik Dillen]

This Prussian Blue story reminds me an experience I had about 45 years ago (at the age of about 12).
I was one of those stupid children that spent the little bit of money they had not on candy or toys, but I saved the
money to buy a small bottle of K-ferrocyanide and other such stuff (I had e.g. a bottle of phosphorus in the cellar, and
enough other products for a small terroristic attack :>))

I discovered in one of those recipe books that adding a drop of K-ferrocyanide solution to something that contained Fe
yielded an intensive blue color (yes, Prussian blue). I went into the garden, where my father had arranged proudly many
decorative rocks, and applied a drop of hydrochloric acid on such a rock + a drop of K-ferrocyanide solution to see if
it contained Fe. And of course it did, as all rocks contain enough Fe to yield Prussian blue. I tried it on a second
rock, an third etc. and an hour later all rocks in the garden had a nice dark-blue stain. No problem, I thought... just
clean the rocks with some water... oh no, impossible to get rid of the blue stain... after all, the whole garden had to
be rearranged, and almost 100 rocks had to be turned upside down.

Lesson : learn your children to play computer games instead of messing around with chemicals :>)

Greetings,

Rik DILLEN 
Doornstraat 15,  B-9170 Sint-Gillis-Waas 
Belgium 
E-mail rik.dillen at skynet.be 
Homepage : http://users.skynet.be/rik.dillen 
>>> Belgian minerals 
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-----Original Message-----
From: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of J Bryan Kramer
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:41 PM
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Ink coloring minerals

Well there's Prussian Blue but I believe it is synthetic not naturally
occurring:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_blue>
Iron salts are used in blue and black ink otherwise. I think it was made by
combining iron salt with oak extracts...yeah here it is:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_gall_ink>
BK

On 10/4/07, Lawrence Rush <larryrush at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> I have an artist friend who is experimenting with home-made inks. She
> asked me for mineral samples which she could grind up to provide the
> coloring agent for these inks. I know the Native Americans used Hematite and
> Limonite to make "ochres", but the other colors they used for clothing dyes
> seem all to be organic and plant based. I have also heard of some minerals
> used for facial decor, such as eye-shadowing and rouge in the Middle Ages.
> But I couldn't come up with any soluble minerals that could color inks.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks....Larry Rush