One Week 100 People 2026 Day 3
We had a rocket attack every three hours last night so I was very tired today. Got only 10 sketches out of the 20, although I may be able to get some more tonight.
Field Notes sketchbook, Faber Castell Pitt pens.
Tag: Drawing
One Week 100 People 2026 Day 2
Shelter sketches today as well, on a battered Field Notes sketchbook using Faber Castell Pitt pens. I have a cold, so it was a struggle to get these done today.
One Week 100 People 2026 Day 1
It’s time for the yearly one week 100 people challenge. This year I’ll be doing most of it out of a bomb shelter.
The first three sketches were done at a morning zoom meeting on a Stillman and Birn Alpha.
The rest were done in the bomb shelter throughout the day, on a a Field Notes sketchbook that has seen some water damage.
Sketched with a Faber Castell Pitt 0.3 pen and brush pens.
Happy New Year! 2026 Edition
Have a happy new year! Here’s hoping that 2026 will be much better than 2025 was.
Here are a few recent sketches (mostly) from my Stillman and Birn pocket beta notebook.
Have a creative new year!
Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 25
The final day! The day we’ve all been waiting for! The day with a full bottle of ink in the colour of this year’s calendar (i.e. teal)! And they let the resident dad on the team name it…
Day 25’s ink is Diamine Myrrh the Merrier. I told you it was named by a dad – and a dad that’s very pleased with himself right now 🙂
It’s a shimmer and sheen teal ink, with blue shimmer and red-purple sheen.
This ink is pretty, it’s got character and shimmer and sheen – but thankfully it’s still a teal ink. You can see the lovely base colour beyond all the pizzazz.
I have been using Myrrh the Merrier for my journaling and general writing for the past three days, and it flows well for a shimmer and sheen ink. Yes, if you leave it uncapped for a while you’ll have a hard start, but for a sheen and shimmer ink it’s been impressively well behaved.
You can see the sheen, but you can also see the ink colour.
This year’s final bear is Candy by June Kendall, a one of a kind British artist bear.
As opposed to last year’s day 25 ink which was disappointing and an ink that I don’t ever see myself using, this year’s Myrrh the Merrier ink is delightful and actually fun to use.
That’s all for the individual ink reviews for this year’s inkvent. In a day or two I’ll post my summary post, discussing the calendar as a whole and highlighting some of my favourites.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!
Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 24
Day 24’s ink is Diamine Antler, a raw umber (i.e. brown) pigment ink. This is the perfect classic shade of ink for sketching, and I can’t wait to use it with my watercolours.
Diamine Antler won’t be a favourite for everyone, being a brown ink, but it’s a useful colour for sketching, and it’s an interesting brown. It’s “flat” in terms of shading (or in this case, lack thereof), but the colour itself has a hint of red in it, and yet isn’t a strictly warm colour. It’s hard to explain, but if you’ve used raw umber in sketching you’ll know what I mean.
Today’s bear is Braeburn, the only bear that I’ve ever bought online. He was part of a limited edition series that Dean’s Rag Book Co (my favourite bear makes, now defunct) issued, with each bear themed around a species of apple. This fellow is Braeburn:
I will be testing out Diamine Antler with some watercolours. I think that it could be a good ink to have in rotation – provided I don’t already have a similar pigment ink on hand.
Did you like Diamine Antler or was it too boring and brown for you?
Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 23
Day 23’s ink is Diamine Let it Snow, a turquoise ink with chameleon shimmer. It’s a lovely ink (turquoise is my favourite, and it’s utterly appropriate for this year’s inkvent) with some nice shading as a bonus.
Here’s a closeup on the magical chameleon effect:
I had issues with leaking with this ink. I’m not sure if it’s the ink or the pen, but the result was very messy. I’ll be keeping an eye out on this one, and maybe testing this ink a different pen. I tested in a fine nibbed Lamy Safari that I’ve had and used for years without issues. In any case, the ink itself is nice, and it shades even in a fine nib:
Today’s bear is a German bear from Clemens Bears – a relatively big manufacturer. He’s number 667 out of 777 and he’s called Keoki. I love his puppy like face and his paper hat.
Setting aside the leaking issues, I love Diamine Let it Snow. I think the colour is perfect, the name is perfect and the chameleon effect and the shading make it an interesting ink. What did you think? Did you have flow issues with this ink?
Diamine Invkvent 2025 Day 22
Day 22’s ink is Diamine Pineapple Spritz, a mustard coloured pigment chameleon ink. While I guess that the name is appropriate (I don’t drink so I’m not very familiar with cocktails) I really wish that it was just a pigment ink and not also a chameleon one.
If Pineapple Spritz was a pigment ink it would be an interesting ink to sketch with. Yellow tends to disappear in watercolours, but also still have enough presence to affect the drawing – a bit like red does. As it’s a chameleon ink as well it’s going nowhere near my watercolours and my brushes. The last thing I need is glitter stuck on everything forever.
Since I wasn’t going to use this for sketching and because Diamine Pineapple Spritz is both a pigment and a chameleon ink, plus it’s yellow (which tends to crystalise), I just opted to test this by dipping a Pilot Metropolitan medium nib in it, rather than filling the pen and dealing with cleaning it later. Because it’s a mustard yellow it’s fairly legible, and would work decently well for greeting cards and highlighting things. In that case though I’d prefer it to be chameleon only, as the pigment property doesn’t add much and it will make it more difficult to clean out the pen.
Today’s bear is also a Holbins Bear, hand made in England. Her name is Fiji and her sweater has a tiny crochet flower on it.
I personally don’t find a need for an ink in the shade of Diamine Pineapple Spritz. It would have been nice to try it out as a sketching ink if it was only a pigment and not a chameleon one, but as it is I don’t ever see myself using it. What do you think?
Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 21
Day 21’s ink is Diamine Chaos. That’s right – Diamine Chaos. This is a dark purple, almost black ink, that’s “extreme sheen” – which means you basically see green sheen everywhere. I’m flummoxed by both this ink and Diamine Energy back in day 2. They both feel like Halloween inks more than Inkvent inks.
This ink isn’t brown, but the effect of so much golden-green sheen makes it appear to be brown instead of the really quite interesting deep purple that it is.
There must be someone in Diamine with a particular kind of humor if they included this ink in the calendar, and then called it “Chaos”. It’s a bit of a cynical outlook on this time of year, but I’m here for it.
How much sheen is “extreme sheen”? A lot:
Today’s bear is called Flippy. He’s made in England by Hoblins Bears, and he’s tiny and adorable.
Diamine Chaos feels a bit out of place in an Inkvent calendar. I wish that it didn’t have the extreme sheen effect, because the base ink colour is actually really interesting. As it is, you barely get to glimpse it under all of the golden green sheen, and because the ink is so saturated it will likely bleed through and show through all but the thickest paper. In short – it’s not an ink that I see myself purchasing.
Are you a fan of Chaos’s sheen? What did you think of this ink?
Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 20
Day 20’s ink is Diamine Ambiance, a tomato red or orange-red chameleon ink with some shading. It’s an interesting colour, but also a peculiar one. It’s somewhere between red and orange, and for a chameleon ink with some shading to it, it’s somehow quite… flat.
Inks in this hue tend to have either zero shading or rather wild and striking shading, and Diamine Ambiance falls closer to the zero shading area.
I’m not in love with the colour either. Diamine Ambience seems to lack conviction to me – either be a red, or be an orange, don’t be a wishy-washy in-between-er. I’m also not sure where the name comes from and how it’s related to the holiday/winter theme.
Today’s bear is Pumpkin, by Maddy Aldis. It’s tiny but very heavy – filled with lead shot.
I used a Pilot Metropolitan with a CM nib, and yet the flow of Diamine Ambience wasn’t great. Inks in the yellow/red/orange range tend to have somewhat problematic properties – they tend to crystalize, for example. I’m slightly worried about this ink and I doubt that I’ll have much use for it so I’ll likely be cleaning it out of the pen soon. Overall, I’m not a fan of Diamine Ambience.
Did you like it?
Writing at Large 