Stocking Stuffer Ideas for Sketchers

If there’s a sketcher in your life and you’re looking for some stocking stuffers for them, here are a few ideas:

Sweat Bands

These are not only useful for tennis players, they’re great for Urban Sketchers or anyone who sketches on the go. You can find them very cheaply at any sports brand store, and they’re oftentimes discounted (so you can splurge on brand named ones). You wear one of these on your wrist as you use your waterbrush, and you can quickly and conveniently clean your brush on it. When it gets too “colourful” (pun intended) you just toss it into the washing machine. I have two pairs of these in rotation at all times (one from Nike and one from Lululemon, both cost about $5), and they’re an integral part of my portable watercolour kit.

Waterbrush

These are inexpensive and every sketcher can use one – even if they have one or two already. They can be used with watercolour or filled with a mixture of ink and water and used for sketches on the go.

Small Spray Water Bottle

These are great for anyone who uses watercolours. They can be used to quickly clean your palette, to wet your paint pans, to create effects on your paper, or even to play with ink. Plus, even if they have one, another one will still come in handy.

Fineliner Pens

My favourites are Staedtler but Sakura may be more widely available (Uniball and Zebra also make good ones). In any case a 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 will always be appreciated, even if they already have them. Buy black and not any wild colours, and avoid buying the Copic metal ones because they’re needlessly expensive.

Excellent Pencils

These can be a bit more expensive, depending on the quantity you buy them in, but Tombow Mono 100 pencils in 2B, B, H, F and/or HB or Mistubishi Hi-Uni also in 2B, B, H, F and/or HB would be greatly appreciated. Add a Tombow Mono Light eraser or a kneaded eraser for added thoughtfulness. If you can only purchase one harness, go for B or 2B, unless they work exclusively in watercolour, in which point go for F or H.

Faber-Castell Pitt Brush Pens

These are waterproof, and great for quick sketches. The tips wear down relatively quickly so even if they have them already, additional ones will be appreciated. Go for cool greys or just wild on the colours, and make sure that they’re brush pens, not fineliners (there’s a B on the end of the pen that denotes brush tip).

I’d skip the black, because for that there’s:

Pentel Pocket Brush (GFKP)

A favourite with sketchers, cartoonists and calligraphers, this is the best black India ink brush pen that you can find. Throw in a a few refill cartridges or a Uni-ball Signo Broad white gel pen if you’re feeling generous.

Stillman and Birn Pocket Alpha Sketchbook

A favourite among Urban Sketchers for good reason, this pocket sketchbook can take anything you can throw at it, has a plenty of pages, and can take a beating. Don’t be tempted by the Beta paper, it’s thicker but also contains fewer pages. Throw in a Fineliner or a Bic (you can splurge for a golden one if you’re bored), and a binder clip to keep the sketchbook closed and you have a complete Urban Sketcher set.

My battered and well-loved Stillman &Birn Pocket Alpha with a Field Notes rubber band to keep it closed.

Hopefully you’ll find some inspiration in this list. If you have any more ideas for stocking stuffers for sketchers, please write them in the comments below. Happy holidays!

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 25

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. You can read more about the calendar here.

It’s the final day of the Diamine Inkvent calendar, and there’s a full 30ml bottle of ink behind today’s door. I guessed that today’s ink will probably be a shimmer and sheen ink, perhaps in the same shade of blue of the calendar. Then again, from the ink name there was a chance that it would be a green or a red, which I find less useful.

Turns out that my first guess was right. Day 25’s ink is Diamine Happy Holidays, and it’s a sheen and shimmer rich royal blue, just like the Inkvent calendar. The blue they chose is beautiful, dark but not so dark that it becomes black. It shades well, even though it’s saturated, and has a red sheen and light blue glitter in it.

You can see the shading. Where the ink pools there’s sheen, and if you shake the ink well before use (including in the pen) you’ll see a good amount of shimmer. I filled a TWSBI Go 1.1 stub with this ink and on Tomoe river paper this ink shines.

You can see the sheen and shimmer best when you tilt the paper slightly.

Even on Rhodia paper you can see the shimmer and sheen:

Diamine Happy Holidays is a lovely ink, and I’m glad that I now have a 30ml bottle of it. Is it the most unique colour in the calendar? No, it’s pretty close to the other four dark blues. However, looking over all of the other colours in the calendar, I don’t think that they could have selected a better ink for the last day.

I loved almost all of the inks in the Diamine Inkvent calendar (apart from Diamine Triple Chocolate). The calendar itself is a beautiful and well designed objects, the tiny bottles were charming (some of the labels had minor flaking problems, but who cares), and the sheer amount of unique inks produced for this is astounding. I know that Diamine said that these inks were made only for the calendar, but I would be glad to see some of them re-issued in larger bottles. If Diamine issue another calendar next year I will definitely buy it, probably even if it has the exact same ink colours. The Diamine Inkvent calendar is one of the best stationery products of the year, and certainly one of the most entertaining ones.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 21

It’s day 21 in the Diamine Inkvent calendar and we’re down to the final five. Today’s door didn’t look promising but…

…day 21’s ink is not a blue, or a red, or a green! It’s Diamine Fire Embers, the orange I’ve been waiting for for the past 20 days, and one of the best and most practical oranges I’ve ever seen. How dare you call it “standard”, Diamine? This ink is exceptional!

Diamine Fire Embers is a dark, reddish orange that glows on the page, and dries dark enough to make it practical (i.e. readable). There’s a significant amount of shading while the ink is still wet, but it tones down a bit as the ink dries.

There’s still a good amount of shading to be had here.

On the Tomoe river paper above the shading is much more pronounced than on the Clairefontaine paper below, but that’s to be expected.

Less shading, even when viewed at an angle.

Diamine Fire Embers is one of the better inks in the calendar in my opinion, and I’m not even a fan of orange ink. It’s so cheerful and vibrant, it’s bound to make you smile as you use it, whether for letter writing or for cards.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 16

It’s day 16, and we’re going back to the weird and wild part of the calendar.

Day 16’s ink is Diamine Seasons Greetings and its a gem. It’s a dark teal green with a ton of shading and purple sheen.

Look how pretty it is! It’s such a beautiful and unique colour, it deserves the widest possible italic nib you own and Tomoe River paper to enjoy it to the fullest.

Look at that sheen! If that isn’t festive, I don’t know what is. I would totally buy a 30ml bottle of this ink.

Christmas Market, German Colony, Haifa

Drawing with watercolours in the dark is challenging. German Colony Christmas market, Haifa, Israel.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 15

Day 15 is perched on a branch and looks a bit like it. I can’t say this enough: I really love the design of this calendar. It’s so well thought out, beautiful and clever.

Day 15’s ink is Diamine Festive Cheer, a deep, royal blue ink with a purple-golden sheen. It offers less shading and less sheen than Diamine Polar Glow.

It’s a beautiful ink, but it’s a little underwhelming when compared to Diamine Polar Glow, and even the lighter Diamine Jack Frost.

This is a saturated colour, so as much as I trust Diamine, I’m hesitant to use it in vintage pens, just from a cleaning out and staining perspective, but it’s still a nice ink that will probably one of the first ones I finish from the set, just because it’s a pretty practical colour.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 14

Day 14 has little twigs and leaves growing out from it! So cute.

Day 14’s ink is Diamine Jack Frost, and like last Sunday’s Gold Star Diamine went all out with this one. It shimmers, it sheens, it shades, it pops – it’s everything an ink could ever do, people.

Look at all that glitter!

See that bright smudge on the bottom? That’s all glitter.

This is an ink that you’re going to want to really, really shake before you fill your pen and before every use.

On a Kanso Sasshi 3.5” x 5.5” Tomoe River Paper notebook with what Pelikan laughingly calls a medium nib you can see the sheen immediately. Wherever the ink pools you’ll see a reddish purple halo. There’s so much of it that it obscures a lot of the shading, but there’s still a lot of that going around.

I’m not great at photographing glitter, but believe me the whole drawing was shimmering like the tree in the centre. The particles are silvery blue, and they’re very, very pretty.

I would have liked Diamine Jack Frost to be a turquoise or aqua ink at its base, but it still is a beautiful ink that’s anything but your standard, run-of-the-mill blue.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 13

I like the nib ornament above today’s door. I wasn’t expecting Diamine to go all out on day 13, but I actually think that today’s ink was pretty interesting.

Day 13’s ink is Diamine Mulled Wine, a standard ink that’s a burgundy red with brown elements that remind me a little of Diamine Oxblood.

You really get the wine quality with this ink, but also cinnamon and cloves, which what makes Mulled Wine such a great name for this ink. It’s a perfect winter colour, and it shades beautifully. I’m kind of glad that Diamine let this ink stand on its own and didn’t add shimmer or sheen to it. It’s the most interesting red ink of the bunch so far, and that’s saying a lot for a calendar with so many red inks.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 11

It’s magical day 11 on the Diamine Inkvent Calendar, and… we’re back to standard inks.

Day 11’s ink is Diamine Elf, a standard green ink that shades nicely and is more bright and cheerful than Diamine Mistletoe.

Even with a Lamy Safari fine nib on Clairefontaine paper you can see the shading. On Tomoe River paper the shading is more pronounced and the green is more vibrant.

I like Diamine Elf because it’s a nice shade of green, but it’s one of the least unique inks in the calendar. Sometimes you need a little calm in the midst of the shiny, shimmering storm.

Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 10

It’s day 10 in the Diamine Inkvent Calendar, and so far there hasn’t been a truly weird ink in the bunch. That’s about to change…

Day 10’s ink is Diamine Winter Miracle, a sheen and shimmer dark purple ink. Now, purple is notoriously difficult to photograph, but if you look at photos of Winter Miracle and say to yourself, “huh, it looks almost black”, that’s not a photography issue. Diamine Winter Miracle is a super saturated, deep, dark eggplant purple with some shimmer (much less than Gold Star) and a significant amount of green sheen. It looks like black with an attitude.

You can see some of the silver shimmer on the top, but it’s understated compared to Diamine Gold Star.

Tomoe river paper makes this ink look wild, especially when viewed at an angle to the light.

Winter Miracle was so unusual that I went ahead and filled a Pelikan Pelikano Up with it. The medium Pelikan nib (that’s a broad for every other maker) really shows off this interesting and unique ink, and it’s dark enough to pass as black at a cursory glance. I even wrote down next year’s resolutions with it.

Writing at Large

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