It’s day 14 in the Invent calendar, and it’s time for one of my favourite door illustrations:

Day 14’s ink is Diamine Three Kings, a standard dark yellow ink. Yes, that’s not a mistake – there’s not a smidgen of sparkle in sight with this one, despite the ink’s shade and its name. I salute whomever had the restraint.

What Three Kings does well is shade. The colour reminds of aged gold, a yellow with a good hint of dark orange to it.

I drew a not very good sketch of a lion with Three Kings, and while I love the shading that it offers and it reminds me of yellow ochre (which I use a lot in my sketches) I don’t think that it’s the best shade for sketching. It won’t stand up to other colours, it isn’t waterproof so it won’t combine well with watercolours, and it’s a bit anaemic on its own. Maybe combined with other brown inks…

Diamine Three Kings is an interesting colour, mostly because it’s sort of a colour hybrid (like R&K’s Alt Goldrun in concept, if not in colour), and it isn’t a shimmer or chameleon ink. I don’t see a bottle of this ink in my future, but if you are looking for a yellow ochre ink, Three Kings may be the ink for you.