Many thanks to Diamine for producing yet another fun Inkvent Calendar (The Purple Edition). As always, it’s been a joy to play with this most magical of mediums and it’s been great to see so many more people joining in and sharing their fun.
Can you believe that this is the fourth edition of the Diamine Inkvent Calendar? It still continues to offer a wide range of: standard, shading, sheening (not this year), shimmering and chameleon inks plus a couple of scented offerings too. Noted for this year, I think that the quantities of each ink type may have pandered somewhat to the trends that are current. And that may help explain the deluge of shimmer! And that’s why I’ll be remembering this one as the Shimmer Fest Edition.
As always, the first 24 colours come in 12ml bottles while the Christmas Day ink comes in a 30ml bottle. Their ink names all reflect, in some way, the festive season, so once you’ve opened all of the doors in sequence, you’ll have a collection comprising of: Fortune’s Gold (Chameleon), Cashmere Rose (Standard), Early Dusk (Standard), Masquerade (Shimmer), Nightfall (Chameleon), Buck’s Fizz (Chameleon), Sweet Dreams (Scented Standard), Jacaranda (Standard), Moon Beam (Chameleon), Velvet Emerald (Standard), Glacier (Shimmer), Bah Humbug (Chameleon), Weeping Willow (Standard), Rainbows End (Chameleon), Walnut (Standard), Merry and Bright (Shimmer), Lavender Frost (Shimmer), Blizzard (Shimmer), Cinnabun (Scented Standard), Astral (Chameleon), Tranquility (Chameleon), Tinsel (Shimmer), Fireside Snug (Standard), Sugar Snap (Shimmer) and Raise a Glass (Chameleon Sheen).
The swatch cards below are in day opening order with Fortunes Gold – Day 01 – at the bottom and Raise a Glass – Christmas Day – at the top left. The swatch cards are hopefully self explanatory for you to see what type of ink each one is and what they are capable of. I have colour balanced each swatch to be as close to the real thing as possible. For any of you that are new comers to my project, please note that my ink swatch cards are not typical! My project is very much serendipity and art driven. I have deconstructed the inks using water to draw out any inherent chromatic and gradation behaviours and also subjected the inks to bleach to see how they glow. I have photographed the results under studio lighting conditions.
Favourites include: Fortunes Gold, Masquerade, Weeping Willow, Fireside Snug, Sugar Snap and Raise a Glass with my favourite being Velvet Emerald. Just look at that chromo and sheen! Add a chameleon shimmer to this one and… can you imagine what that might look like? And that’s what this is about.
This year’s clutch has been wonderful – just as you’d expect from Diamine – full of magical fun. And what’s reassuring to see, is that in spite of all the economic pressures facing people all over the world, the Inkvent Calendars have still manged to sell. I think, any concepts to promote fountain pen ink usage are to be encouraged and evidence from the last 25 days reveals that ink enthusiasts, both existing and new, would appear to be using fountain pen inks both more regularly and, encouragingly, in more creative ways too. And I’ll Raise a Glass to that!
If you’ve enjoyed this post, here are links to my summaries on the previous three editions: Inkvent 2020, Inkvent 2021 and Inkvent 2022. And don’t forget to look out for my annual project review and my favourite top twelve inks I’ve swatched in 2023 which I will post in the New Year.
Swatches conducted on Bockingford 200lb rough, using a Noodler’s Creeper pen, bleach and KUM brushes.
HEY! If you’re interested to know more about how to use fountain pen inks in more creative ways – whether it’s simply to observe their chromatic behaviours, or, to recreate one of my swatch cards, or, to learn how to use them in watercolour painting, illustration and calligraphy, why not check out my online course or, even better, sign up for a workshop?
FOUNTAIN PEN INK ART 