Ink can be roughly divided into oil smoke ink (lacquer smoke ink), Song Yanmo, refined smoke ink, cyan ink, tea ink, Zhu Mo, colored ink and so on.
Blue ink is Song Yanmo mixed with a small amount of cyanine and other pigments. The ink is not black, dull and slightly cyan. Tea ink is Song Yanmo mixed with a small amount of cinnabar and other pigments, and the ink is slightly brown.
Extended data:
Gu Mo development
The origin of China ink stick is very old. Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty had written in ink, and the ink was tested to be black charcoal. Legend has it that lacquer books were used in ancient times, but they have not been confirmed by archaeological discoveries. Early ink could not be made into ink blocks, but only small pieces. When in use, it is sprinkled on the inkstone and ground into ink with a millstone.
A large number of ink records were first seen in Han Guan Yi by Ying Shao in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and this kind of ink was unearthed in the Eastern Han Tomb of Liujiaqu in Shan County, Henan Province. After the Han Dynasty, some famous inks appeared, which were originally supervised by calligraphers. For example, the ink on Wei Wei's birthday is "a bit like lacquer", while that of Liu Song and Zhang Yongzhi in the Southern Dynasties is "a bit like lacquer".
In the Tang Dynasty, famous people specializing in ink painting appeared, such as Zumin, Nai, Ding and others. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Li Chao (formerly known as Xi) made ink in Yizhou and then fled to Zhangzhou. His son, Li Ting, was an ink official in the Southern Tang Dynasty, and his ink was called the best in the world by the great calligrapher Cai Xiang. Li's real thing is gone, and the so-called Li is not credible in modern times.
In the Song Dynasty, the number of famous Mo Gong increased, and the number of candidates exceeded 100, such as Grand Avenue, Wang Di, Pangu, Changhe and Pu Dashao. There were Zhu Wanchu, Pan Yungu, Wu Shan, Wu and Shen Xueweng in the Yuan Dynasty. The ink made by the above-mentioned famous artists in previous dynasties has not been seen yet.
References:
Baidu encyclopedia-Gu Mo, China