This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 8 door:

Day 8’s ink is Diamine Marley, a purple grey standard ink that is actually multi chromatic, like some of the Sailor Studio inks. I used a Lamy Safari with a Fine nib to test out this ink.

Here’s a close up of the Col-O-Ring swab. You can see that Diamine Marley shades a lot, but in the swab itself it’s easy to see just how many shades of colour are in this ink: grey, pink, purple, turquoise, green.

Here’s a writing sample of Diamine Marley on Rhodia paper. It writes like a Sailor Studio ink, but it’s a Diamine ink, so it will be a fraction of the price. It didn’t photograph very well, but this is far from a bland warm grey. You want to just keep exploring this ink as you write with it.

Here’s a writing sample on original Tomoe River Paper. I wasn’t able to capture the full magic of the different shades of colour in this ink, but it’s there. It may not be the full Sailor Studio experience, but it’s close enough.

Here’s today’s teddy bear sketch. Diamine Marley has a good flow and excellent shading properties, and it’s a lot of fun to sketch with this ink. Is it grey? Is it purple? Was there a hint of blue there? And a hint of pink? This ink keeps you guessing.

This bear is one of my only Steiff bears (I don’t like the Steiff look), and one of the few bears in my collection that is unnumbered (though he’s more expensive than a good number of my one of a kind artist bears). It’s also a black bear, which is uncommon, and is a replica of the first black bear that Steiff ever made. It’s called “Teddy bear 1912” and it has an interesting story. From Steiff’s site:

After the dramatic sinking of the “Titanic” in 1912, Steiff produced black Teddy bears for the very first time to reflect the mood of the grieving nation of Great Britain. These “mourning bears” have remained in the memory of many people to this day . This beautiful black bear with its copper-backed, “red-cried” eyes honours the memory of the people aboard the “Titanic”, but also looks to the future with hope.

Diamine Marley is the first ink of this calendar that I will be purchasing. I like grey inks, and this one is a more accessible and affordable Sailor Studio style ink. It scores high on the pragmatic side for me, as it’s a standard ink that’s not overly saturated and yet remains readable and conventional enough to use in many settings. By calling it “Marley” Diamine tied it to the Christmas theme, while in reality it’s not the most festive of colours. It is a nice wintery colour though, and a very attractive ink.

What do you think of Diamine Marley? Do you write with grey inks?