Day 20’s ink is Diamine Ambiance, a tomato red or orange-red chameleon ink with some shading. It’s an interesting colour, but also a peculiar one. It’s somewhere between red and orange, and for a chameleon ink with some shading to it, it’s somehow quite… flat.
Col-o-ring swab
Inks in this hue tend to have either zero shading or rather wild and striking shading, and Diamine Ambiance falls closer to the zero shading area.
Close up on the shading and chameleon effect
I’m not in love with the colour either. Diamine Ambience seems to lack conviction to me – either be a red, or be an orange, don’t be a wishy-washy in-between-er. I’m also not sure where the name comes from and how it’s related to the holiday/winter theme.
Writing and sketching sample on an Apica CD notebook.
Today’s bear is Pumpkin, by Maddy Aldis. It’s tiny but very heavy – filled with lead shot.
The bear
I used a Pilot Metropolitan with a CM nib, and yet the flow of Diamine Ambience wasn’t great. Inks in the yellow/red/orange range tend to have somewhat problematic properties – they tend to crystalize, for example. I’m slightly worried about this ink and I doubt that I’ll have much use for it so I’ll likely be cleaning it out of the pen soon. Overall, I’m not a fan of Diamine Ambience.
Day 19’s ink is Diamine Overcast, a light celadon blue with pink hints. It’s a standard ink with some nice shading but it’s very, very light.
Col-o-ring swab
I used a Lamy AL Star with a fine nib and it was a struggle to read what I wrote at times. This is a lovely ink colour that needs a very wide, very generous nib to lay down enough ink for it to be easily readable on the page.
There is a potential for some nice dual shading with a generous enough nib – the swab clearly shows pink undertones that make this a very beautiful ink. They are completely invisible with a fine, and I’d guess also with a medium nib. This ink wants a stub, italic, double-broad nib or wider.
Closeup on the pink undertones.
Because it’s such a light ink, it lends itself well to delicate shading. It is, however, not an ink I will ever see myself using regularly because it’s so light. This is one of the least practical inks in this year’s Inkvent.
Sketching and writing sample on Apica CD paper
Today’s bear is Sammy from Sambrook Bears. He’s a nice, tiny British bear and I actually like his sweater. I think it fits his personality.
The bear (the string leads to his name tag, not pictured)
I think Diamine Overcast is a lovely ink that I wouldn’t recommend to anybody, because it’s so light. There are those who will find use for it, particularly in wide nibs, but if you use medium nibbed fountain pens or finer, then you would do well to select a more legible ink.
What do you think? Would you use Diamine Overcast?
Day 18’s ink is Diamine Laurel, a dark, saturated blue-green “extreme sheen” ink. It has a LOT of red sheen and it takes ages to dry (although I will say that the TWSBI Eco 1.1 nib lays down a generous amount of ink, which didn’t help things).
Col-o-ring swab
Look at the amount of sheen on this ink – Diamine isn’t kidding when it says “extreme sheen”. You can see the lovely ink colour when you’re writing with it, but the minute it dries you can barely see it under all that reddish-purple sheen.
Close up on the extreme sheen
I used a new fountain pen to test out this ink – a TWSBI Eco Serpentine and Bronze fountain pen with a 1.1 nib. I really like the combination of the bronze, the dark green, and Diamine Laurel. They work well together.
TWSBI Eco Serpentine and bronze
The sheen really gave my camera a hard time, so this photo looks smudged. In any case on Apica CD paper (coated, fountain pen friendly paper) Diamine Laurel took a very long time to dry, so if you’re someone who tends to smudge wet ink, be aware of this.There was no bleed through or show through to the other side of the page.
Writing and sketching sample on Apica CD paper
Here’s a closeup of just how much sheen there is in this ink:
Extreme sheen
Everywhere the ink pools, red sheen glows through:
Extreme sheen
Today’s bear is Milan, made by Bear in Mind. He’s a nice but slightly worried looking bear.
The bear
Red and green work well together, especially in this time of year, and Diamine Laurel is perfect for an Inkvent calendar just on that merit. It’s an attractive ink, especially when combined with a generous nib and paper like Apica CD and Tomoe River Paper. You want a coated paper to make the most of this ink, and you need to take care not smudge this ink while it’s wet. The end results do glow on the page though, so I think that Diamine Laurel is worth the effort. What do you think?
Day 17’s ink is Diamine Gala a lavender purple standard ink with some shading. It’s on the lighter side of inks, so you’ll probably want to use it in a more substantial nib than the EF TWSBI nib that I used to test it with.
Col-o-ring swab
I just received an order of some TWSBI ECOs in the cool new colours they’ve started to issue, so I took the opportunity to use my new TWSBI ECO onyx and plum fountain pen to test out Diamine Gala.
The pen, the ink bottle and the Rhodia dot pad I’m swabbing my inks on
So you can see today’s ink bottle, today’s pen and the mess that swabbing inks has made of my Rhodia dot pad. I may do something with this wreck of a page before I toss it out.
I like Diamine Gala. There have been other inks like it in previous inkvents, but there’s something calming and nice about this ink colour, and I appreciate the fact that it’s a standard ink.
Writing and sketching sample
Today’s bear isn’t a collector’s bear, it’s just a bear that I felt like adding to the collection. I bought him on a whim in a small toy store in Paris, years and years ago.
The bear
While I don’t see myself needing a full bottle of Diamine Gala, I do like the colour enough to enjoy writing with it even though it’s on the light side (I sound like a Sith Lord now, I know). I’m wondering why the name was chosen though. Perhaps the colour evoked a gala dress colour in someone’s mind?
Day 16’s ink is Diamine Ruby Taffeta, a very red ink with chameleon shimmer. The photo here doesn’t capture how blood red this ink is, but believe me, spilling this ink would make people call an ambulance (possibly a unicorn ambulance, because of the shimmer).
Col-o-ring swab
I find this ink name peculiar. I understand the ruby part of it, but why is taffeta fabric involved? Because of the sheen and sparkle of the chameleon shimmer?
Closeup on the chameleon shimmer
Diamine Ruby Taffeta is a great ink for a Christmas themed calendar, and the ink is bold and beautiful.
Sketching and writing sample on Apica CD paper.
Today’s bear is Oliver by June Kendal of Hardy Bears. He’s one of a kind, and tiny but handsome.
The bear
While Diamine Taffeta is a great Inkvent ink, I don’t see myself ever reaching for it for journaling or everyday use. It’s too bright and bling-y, it really calls attention to itself, and that’s a bit too much for needs. Would you buy a full bottle of Ruby Taffeta?
Day 15’s ink is Diamine Frostbite, a dark royal blue ink with light blue shimmer. It’s a nice ink and aptly named, but I feel like I’ve seen others like it in other Inkvent calendars – particularly in the first Inkvent calendar (the 2019 Blue Edition).
Col-o-ring swab
In fact I’m a bit surprised that Diamine haven’t had a “Frostbite” ink as part of their Inkvent calendar yet. This is a handsome and worthy ink to carry this name, even if there are other inks like in the Diamine lineup.
Closeup on the shimmer and sheen of Diamine Frostbite
Diamine Frostbite is a saturated ink, which means that it has a purplish red sheen to it as well as a light blue shimmer effect. It’s not new or exciting but it works well as a holiday/winter themed ink.
Sketching and writing sample on Apica CD
Here’s a closer look at the sheen and shimmer of Diamine Frostbite:
Closeup on the writing sample
Today’s bear is a tiny but perfect, handmade teddy bear that serves as the teddy bear for another, bigger teddy bear. Complicated, I know. Just enjoy looking at him instead:
The bear
Diamine Frostbite is the first “proper” blue of this year’s Inkvent, and it’s a good one. It’s funny that Diamine have waited so long to issue an Invent ink called Frostbite, but this ink has definitely earned the name and is pretty enough to be worth the wait.
What do you think? Is Frostbite interesting or too similar to other Inkvent inks from previous years?
Day 14’s ink is Diamine Mittens, a fuchsia pink pigment ink with some nice shading to it.
Col-o-ring swab
I like the colour of Diamine Mittens, and I like the shading, but I wish it was a standard ink and not a pigment one. I just don’t see myself using it in sketches, though I might experiment and maybe find that it works. It’s also considerably darkened in my Lamy Safari – I thought that maybe the pen wasn’t properly cleaned, but after double checking I think that it’s just something with the ink. In any case I like the colour – it’s got a nice purplish tone to it.
Sketching and writing sample
This little fellow doesn’t have a name, but does have a great little scarf and plenty of personality. I like him.
The bear
Diamine Mittens has a delightful name, and is a nice and interesting colour. It remains to be seen if it’s useful in watercolour sketches, but even if it isn’t I guess it would be nice to use it in greeting cards and letters and know that it won’t smudge if a splash of something lands on it.
Day 13’s ink is Molten Basalt, a standard dark blue ink with so much brown sheen that I don’t understand why this ink wasn’t categorized as a sheen ink. It’s a baffling ink, not something that I’d expect in an Inkvent calendar.
Col-o-ring swab
Something about this ink reminds me of Montblanc Around the World in 80 days – it’s a dark indigo blue ink that looks like spilled petrol more than anything. It reads as a dirty black ink – a brownish black.
Different angle of the Col-o-ring swab
This ink is interesting, even though I’m not sure it should be part of the Inkvent calendar. There’s something about its strangeness that makes me think that it could have been one of the those inks that Diamine designs with input from the community – like celadon cat.
Writing and sketching sample on Apica CD
The only way to see the base colour is to look at it while it dries. Once it’s dry you see the brownish purple sheen settle on every letter.
Close up on the writing
Today’s bear is Alex by June Kendall of Hardy Bears. I have several of her bears and I like her work.
The bear
I’m still not sure what I think of Molten Basalt. I will likely not buy a full bottle of it – will you?
Day 12’s ink is Diamine Bubbly, a light olive green ink with gold shimmer. This ink perfectly evokes champagne. There’s a good amount of shimmer and some nice shading to it, and the base colour is pretty unique.
Col-o-ring swab
The combination of golden shimmer with the base light olive green/golden-green ink creates an ink that looks golden. This would be perfect for greeting cards.
Col-o-ring swab shimmer closeup
Diamine Bubbly is a lovely and unique colour, with a good amount of shading and shimmer, and an absolutely perfect name. It’s a wonderfully festive ink, an a great addition to this year’s Inkvent.
Sketching and writing sample on Apica CD paper
Here’s a closeup on the shading and shimmer:
Close up on the ink
This is Little George, from Collection International – number 311 out of a run of 2000. I have a similar bear in a different size, and I’ve sketched them both in the past, but his weird fur was great for showcasing this ink’s properties.
The bear
Diamine Bubbly is a perfect ink for the holiday season – Diamine really outdid itself with this one. Will you be using it to write your holiday greetings?
Day 11’s ink is Diamine Brrr! It’s a blue pigment shimmer ink – the first in the calendar. The base ink colour is a lovely icy blue with a hint of shading, and the shimmer is relatively subdued in this ink, but still visible. You can see the light blue shimmer in the swab:
Col-o-ring swab
You can see the shading and the shimmer well here:
Close up of the col-o-ring swab
I don’t get this ink – I don’t understand why Diamine created it apart from their need to say that they made an ink that is both pigmented (i.e. waterproof) and shimmer (i.e. full of metallic flaky bits). This will be a challenge to clean out of a pen, especially if left unused for a little while, and the shimmer and pigment properties really don’t go together in terms of use cases.
Sketching and writing sample
If you are looking for a pigment ink you are either writing something that you think may get damaged by water, or more commonly, you want to use it for sketching and go over the ink with a wash. For these purposes Diamine Brrr! Would have been perfect if it didn’t have shimmer in it. Yes, it’s an unusual colour for sketching with, but I have sketched with blue ink before (and many sketchers use blue ballpoints in their sketches) and it works well with watercolour washes. The idea of an ink in this scenario is that it can fade into the background, it can work well with others.
Conversely if you’re looking for a shimmer ink, then you want some pizzazz, some verve and zing in your writing. It’s all about the bling, about calling attention to itself. The two properties don’t really match.
Close up of Diamine Brrr!
Today’s bear is Gerald, and I think that I’ve sketched him before. There’s a limit to my collection, so I’ll be sketching bears that have appeared here in previous years. I like this little fellow – he’s tiny, but he’s a perfect teddy bear.
The bear
I like Diamine Brrr!’s name, I like the colour and the shading, but I wish that it was either a pigment ink (my preference) OR a shimmer ink (as there have been shimmer inks close to Brrr! In hue I would have preferred the pigment over the shimmer property). What I don’t like about it is that it’s both a pigment and a shimmer ink. I’ll be cleaning it out shortly from this pen, just to make sure that it won’t clog it.
A note about the pen used to test this: back in November 2011, years before the Noodler’s scandals, I purchased three Noodler’s Ink Ahab fountain pens – Arizona, Medieval Lapis and Ivory Darkness. They were $20 each and they had just come out and were all the rage – “flex nibs at bargain basement prices”. The pens stank to high heaven, and weren’t really flexible – or well made. Of the three the only one that survived (i.e. the piston didn’t get jammed stuck) was the Arizona – because I never opened it. Well today I opened it and used it to test Diamine Brrr! Why? Mostly because I was scared of putting this ink in any other pen. I don’t care if this pen gets clogged to death (I’m hoping and expecting that it won’t because Diamine are good ink manufacturers), and so it was selected to test it. It would have been nice if the Ahab flexed, but it doesn’t really, so the resulting line is a fine.
Writing at Large 