Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 4

Day 4’s window isn’t exactly aligned with the printing, but you get a cute snowman with it, so who cares?

The day 4 ink is Diamine Polar Glow, which is a royal blue ink that has sheen. How much sheen you ask? Well…

There’s so much red in that gloriously rich blue. I used a vintage italic Waterman ideal nib, and this was drawn on a Kanso Sasshi 3.5” x 5.5” Tomoe River Paper notebook, so this is probably close to maximum sheen, but still, it’s impressive.

Even as a standard ink, Diamine Polar Glow pops. The blue is deep, rich, and yet shades a lot, from cyan to royal blue (you can see it in the leaves in the drawing above). The red sheen just adds a little extra zing to it, without overshadowing the already good qualities of the ink.

This is an ink designed for wide, broad, italic, flex nibs that lay down a lot of ink. It really shows it’s best properties on Tomoe River paper, but even on Rhodia/Clairefontaine paper I could see sheen in every letter (using the same broad italic nib).

Would I buy a bottle of this, if Diamine offered it? Probably yes, since it’s dark enough for office use, but is also more interesting and appealing than a run-of-the-mill dark blue.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 3

Don’t you just love the design on these? Diamine did a fabulous job with the packaging of this calendar.

Day 3’s limited edition Christmas ink is Snow Storm. It’s a shimmer ink, with a lot of silver particles, much more than day 1’s Blue Peppermint. This is how the bottom of the bottle looked like when I took it out from it’s little nook:

This is definitely an ink that you’d want to thoroughly shake before using.

Lantern Waste, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, C.S. Lewis.

Diamine Snow Storm is a grey ink that looks a lot like Diamine Graphite, if you dumped a whole sack of silver glitter on it. It also shades and outlines like mad. Diamine certainly went all out on this one.

Look at all that glitter. There’s so much of it, it sheens.

This was drawn on a Kanso Sasshi 3.5” x 5.5” Tomoe River Paper notebook using a vintage Swan broad italic nib (dipped in the ink, because boy did I not want to clean this ink out of a lever filler), and this combination shows the properties of this ink beautifully. Diamine really proves that grey doesn’t have to be boring .

I’m not a big fan of shimmering ink, but Diamine Snow Storm is so wild, with it’s shading, outlining and silver particles, that it makes me smile. It would be a good replacement for silver gel ink pens, when it comes time to write greeting cards.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 2

So what’s behind door number 2?

Day 2’s limited edition ink is Diamine Candy Cane. It’s a standard ink, midway between Diamine Amaranth and Diamine Coral, both excellent and unique pink inks. This ink shades a lot, even in a fine Lamy Safari (Coral) pen. It’s a dark enough pink to be readable, but still not something that I would recommend for an office setting. It’s great for personal correspondence, Christmas cards, and journalling.

The bottle is made of glass and is delightful, but a bit impractical for use. You need a cartridge converter or a syringe to fill a pen with this ink, or you can just use it with a dip pen or a brush.

Look at that shading! Yes, this was drawn on a Kanso Sasshi 3.5” x 5.5” Tomoe River Paper notebook, and Tomoe River paper makes everything pop, but even on “regular” Rhodia paper you can notice the shading. That’s not always true for such bright and light shades, like pink or coral.

If you enjoy the looks of this ink, I think that there’s a good chance that you’ll love Diamine Coral (it’s such an optimistic colour) or Diamine Amaranth (which is also a delicious looking ink, but darker than Diamine Candy Cane).

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 1: Blue Peppermint

Diamine Inkvent Calendar is an advent calendar with a tiny (7ml) bottle of ink behind 24 windows, and a larger, 30ml, bottle of ink behind the 25th window. All the inks are limited edition, and only available through this calendar, which I already feel is going to be a shame. I want more of today’s Blue Peppermint ink, and we’re only on day one. You can read more about the calendar here.

This was drawn on a Kanso Sasshi 3.5” x 5.5” Tomoe River Paper notebook, using a Lamy AL-Star Pacific fine nib fountain pen. Peppermint Blue shades a lot, even not on Tomoe River Paper, and it shimmers (which I just can’t seem to capture) with silver sparkles. It seemed appropriate for today’s topic.

The bottle is tiny and very cute. This is an ink that I’d love to see in Diamine’s regular lineup (or even available for purchase as a seasonal 30ml bottle), and it’s very winter appropriate.

Carthage and Rome

Drawn with Staedtler fineliners, Copic Sketch markers and Faber-Castell PITT brush pens. The actresses from the wonderful play “The Mystery of the Lost City Guardian (of Doom)”.

Tel Aviv and London

Drawn with Staedtler fineliners and various markers. The actresses from the wonderful play “The Mystery of the Lost City Guardian (of Doom)”.

Some days you just need to doodle in your journal

Haifa and Jerusalem

This time in pen and markers. The actresses from the wonderful play “The Mystery of the Lost City Guardian (of Doom)” strike again.

Tokyo and Jerusalem, Strike 2

This time in pen and markers. The actresses from the wonderful play “The Mystery of the Lost City Guardian (of Doom)” strike again. I still don’t know what to do with Jerusalem’s background, but I’ll figure something out.

Inktober 31: Happy Halloween!

The outline and cat were drawn with a Waterman Phileas (EF nib) and Noodler’s Heart of Darkness (which I haven’t used in years, no idea why), and the hat and clothes were filled in with a Tombow Fudenosuke dual sided brush pen.

It was a fun challenge, and I really pushed myself this year to try new and different things. Can’t wait for next year’s Inktober!

Writing at Large

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