Category: Ink

Diamine Inkvent 2022 Day 2: Yule Log

What’s behind door number 2?

Door 2

A very festively named ink:

Diamine Yule Log

Day 2’s ink is Diamine Yule Log, a brown shimmer ink. There’s a lot of coppery shimmer in this ink, and a good amount of shading. I filled a Lamy Studio fine nibbed fountain pen with this ink, and all the writing samples here are done with that:

Diamine Yule Log on Col-o-Ring

Yule Log is a sketcher’s ink in terms of hue: if it didn’t have shimmer to it, I could see myself sketching landscapes with it. You can see how close it is in shade and shading to De Atramentis Urban Sienna, which is an excellent sketching ink. Yule Log tends a bit more to yellow and Urban Sienna tends a bit more to red, but they both look like classic inks for pen and ink sketching.

The coppery shimmer does add interest to Diamine Yule Log and it makes it more celebratory without being so much shimmer that you lose the character of the ink. It still shades beautifully, and has a warm richness to it even without the sparkles:

Yule Log sketch on Tomoe River paper 52g

I love that this ink is part of the Inkvent calendar, but I’m not so sure where it lives once Inkvent is over. Yule Log is dark enough to use in serious settings, but then it’s a shimmer ink, so maybe not something you want your colleagues to see you write meeting notes with. It isn’t festive enough to be your ink of choice for Christmas cards, and I’m not sure it has a place over any other ink for any other purpose. I’m sure that it’s going to be someone’s favourite ink somewhere, it’s just that I don’t think many people will be rushing off to buy a full bottle of it.

Writing sample on Tomoe river paper 68g

Diamine Inkvent 2022 Day 1: Bliss

It’s day 1 of Inkvent 2022, and it’s time to see what’s behind the first door (the illustration on the calendar is exactly the same as in previous years, just on a green background, instead of a blue or red one):

Door 1

It’s Diamine Bliss!

Diamine Bliss bottle

I filled a Pilot Metropolitan fine nibbed pen with it, and created this Col-O-Ring swab:

A nice and bright turquoise with some shading.

It’s definitely a cheerful and calming colour, and it has distinct summery vibes to it. To test it out I created a quick sketch of the beach and the Mediterranean on a Tomoe River 52g notebook (the original Tomoe River paper).

A blissful view.

I then wrote this quick review of The Expanse series using it. As you can see, despite this ink being labelled as “standard” it shades very well, even in a fine nibbed pen. It also remains readable throughout, which isn’t a given in turquoise inks. This was written on Tomoe River paper 68g (original tomoe river paper).

I highly recommend reading The Expanse. Yes, all nine novels. It’s worth it.

I like turquoise inks, and so I have a few swabs of them at hand (and one or two laying around that I haven’t swabbed yet). Diamine Bliss is very close to Sailor Bungubox June Bride Something Blue, and not far from Diamine Subzero (minus the shimmer). Not a particularly rare shade of ink, but a nice one nonetheless.

Inktober Day 25: Waterlilies in Ramat Gan

There’s a waterlily pool near where I work, and it would be so easy to paint them with watercolours and so difficult to sketch them in pen and ink, so of course I sketched them in pen and ink. It is inktober after all.

Platinum 3776 UEF, Sailor Epinard, A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.

Inktober Day 24: Our Friend Joe

This is a quick sketch of our family friend Joe during our weekly zoom meeting with him. Joe is one of the smartest, funniest and kindest people I know, he’s 97 years old, and he’s been a family friend since I can remember myself.
Do you have a similar inspiration in your life?

This was sketched using a Platinum Plaisir fountain pen on an A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.

Inktober Day 23: Packing Up the Plastics in the Sea Exhibit

As I was running a few days ago I saw some workers packing up the plastics in the sea exhibit and I stopped to take a picture of them as they tried to figure out how to fit all the statues into their truck. I sketched this purposely very loosely and very quickly, to see if I could capture a complex scene without getting overly absorbed in the detail. It’s a good exercise to try out, and one that I intend to do more of in the future.

TWSBI ECO fine with J. Herbin Emarald of Chivor on an A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.

Inktober Day 22: Indian Motorcycle

A friend was at a local vintage Indian motorcycle meeting and she took a photo of a 1948 Indian chief, so this is today’s sketch, directly in pen and ink. 3776 Plantinum UEF fountain pen with Sailor Epinard ink on an A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.

Inktober Day 21: Autumn in Saskatchewan (autumn foliage part 5 – the finale)

My memories of autumn in Regina Saskatchewan are what inspired this small series, and so I thought that it would be fitting to draw a small panorama of autumn leaves in Regina.
Drawn with various brush pens and Staedtler markers on an A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.

You can see the full page here. I kind of like the resulting effect:

And if you want a process video, here it is:

Inktober Day 19: Sugar Maple (Autumn foliage part 3)

The grey bark of the sugar maple make its orange foliage pop even more. Drawn with a Kuretake fudegokochi extra fine brush pen which I do not recommend for any sort of artwork – it takes ages to dry, and isn’t stable until it’s completely dry, and even then you can’t trust it not to make a mess of your artwork. Also used Faber Castell Pitt brush pens (which I do recommend) on an A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.