Diamine Inkvent 2021

[K-2]

"All the Best" - Ink #25 of Inkvent.  What a stunning ink!  A rich, saturated, burgundy ink with blue shimmer and gold sheen, in a 30ml bottle.  A beautiful, clean gold reaction to bleach - somewhat reluctantly on the heavily saturated areas, and chromatography bleeding out shades of pink from blush to magenta.

It writes great with pointed and broad edge nibs, dipped straight from the bottle, and I think I prefer it as a writing ink to a drawing ink.

In honor of this knockout (and playing off the name of the ink) the drawing features The Greatest himself.

Thanks to @AnasaziWrites for joining me in experimenting with this ink set.  And thanks to everyone who voiced support and encouragement for this little project.  And special thanks to @Erica McPhee for establishing and presiding over such a friendly corner of the internet!  I've heard tell that Diamine will release 50ml bottles of this "Red Collection" early this year.  I'm eager to pick up full sized bottles of "Seize the Night", "Stargazer", and "Ancient Copper".  Which ones might you collect?

[Erica McPhee]

Wow! So powerful! Many thanks to you for sharing your beautiful work with us. It’s a privilege and honor for us! 

[AnasaziWrites]

"All the Best" - Ink #25 of Inkvent.  What a stunning ink!  A rich, saturated, burgundy ink with blue shimmer and gold sheen, in a 30ml bottle.  A beautiful, clean gold reaction to bleach - somewhat reluctantly on the heavily saturated areas, and chromatography bleeding out shades of pink from blush to magenta.

It writes great with pointed and broad edge nibs, dipped straight from the bottle, and I think I prefer it as a writing ink to a drawing ink.

An iconic Ali pose in his dominating win over Liston. I'm very happy you kept the drawing in a "rough" state (that's a compliment, not a slight), versus a more refined portrait. It beautifully expresses the raw power exhibited in that moment, years before he was widely acclaimed as "the best" or "The Greatest."

Thanks to @AnasaziWrites for joining me in experimenting with this ink set.

My pleasure.
 
 

And thanks to everyone who voiced support and encouragement for this little project.  And special thanks to @Erica McPhee for establishing and presiding over such a friendly corner of the internet!

Hear, hear.

  I've heard tell that Diamine will release 50ml bottles of this "Red Collection" early this year.  I'm eager to pick up full sized bottles of "Seize the Night", "Stargazer", and "Ancient Copper".  Which ones might you collect?

My favorite thus far (I still haven't tested all of them) is "All the Best", and am lucky it is already in a larger bottle. Stargazer would be a close second. I guess I'm attracted to ones with both shimmer and sheen, as they are unlike anything I already have, containing several distinct effects. I liked Pink Ice as well, as I have no such color in my inventory, but as I use these inks mostly for writing, not drawing, it's unlikely I'll get a large bottle of it, as I don't see myself writing in pink very often, if at all (perhaps to my very young grandniece?).
I may update my list of favorites after a time, when I've tested the thus far untested.

Still would like to be able to get finer hairlines with this ink. I'll push the envelope with the gum arabic on "All the Best," as I have a good supply of it. Any other suggestions?
Also, I've found, in an effort to make the inks more permanent/waterproof, I found overspraying then with fixative knocks off some/most of the shimmer. Any thoughts?
@K-2

[K-2]

Thanks so much for your good thoughts, @AnasaziWrites - I wanted to show the energy of the moment in the brush strokes.  Glad it came across as intended!

I think spraying these inks with fixatives reduces the shimmer and sheen, because it forces the light to reflect off the surface at the level of the fixative - the shimmer depends on light scattering off the glitter particles at different angles, and the sheen depends on the light reflecting off the top layer of ink that dries without being absorbed by the paper.  I know it's tempting to try to preserve everything that is beautiful, but maybe some things are beautiful because they are ephemeral?  I often use fixatives under the ink, to keep the paper from absorbing it, but seldom over it.  It's only paper and ink, after all - and if the paper is acid free and you keep the ink out of the light, it could last for several hundred years without other help.  Just keep it dry.

@Lyric was wondering how the ink behaves in an actual fountain pen (as it is formulated for fountain pens), so here are a few broad edge samples of "All the Best" - straight out of the bottle, drawn with a 3mm Pilot Parallel on Tomoegawa 52gsm paper.  It's possible that the shimmer & sheen would show up brighter in daylight, but I've got a busy day tomorrow, and days are still kind of short up here - there's not much sunlight before or after my typical workday in the winter.

--yours, K

[Lyric]

Hot diggity!!!  Look at this, yaw'll!!

Now I am REALLY excited to learn.  Too bad only 24 hours in a day.  My cursive course download just arrived.   

Thank you for sharing this, K-2.

[AnasaziWrites]

I think spraying these inks with fixatives reduces the shimmer and sheen, because it forces the light to reflect off the surface at the level of the fixative - the shimmer depends on light scattering off the glitter particles at different angles, and the sheen depends on the light reflecting off the top layer of ink that dries without being absorbed by the paper.

Good explanation, thanks @K-2

  I know it's tempting to try to preserve everything that is beautiful, but maybe some things are beautiful because they are ephemeral?

I agree. As in a sunset or snowflake.

I often use fixatives under the ink, to keep the paper from absorbing it, but seldom over it.  It's only paper and ink, after all - and if the paper is acid free and you keep the ink out of the light, it could last for several hundred years without other help.  Just keep it dry.

Ah, yes. If I were attempting to preserve something for the ages, I might be better to inscribe the work on copper and store them in the Qumran caves, but that was not the intent here. I wanted to try the "All the Best" on envelope addresses going through the USPS. If the weather is damp or even raining, I've received mail that is wet, and feared the address might be unreadable after the USPS handled it. As my original test piece with this ink has still not been delivered after two weeks+, I opted to use permanent ink for the rest of the envelopes in the last exchange. Not really a fan of those clear plastic sleeves that can protect the envelope for various reasons.

@Lyric was wondering how the ink behaves in an actual fountain pen (as it is formulated for fountain pens), so here are a few broad edge samples of "All the Best" - straight out of the bottle, drawn with a 3mm Pilot Parallel on Tomoegawa 52gsm paper.  It's possible that the shimmer & sheen would show up brighter in daylight, but I've got a busy day tomorrow, and days are still kind of short up here - there's not much sunlight before or after my typical workday in the winter.

--yours, K

Nice work on the various trials of the ink.

[K-2]

@Lyric - Let us know if we can help you as you journey along.  Having exciting inks to work with can be a really great incentive, if they entice you to practice.  Make sure to invest in good paper too though, in order to avoid disappointment with bleeding.  I think these inks are particularly well suited for broad edge calligraphy to show off their shimmer and sheen, and the broader the nib, the more dramatic the effect.

@AnasaziWrites - In all my years of sending and receiving fancy envelopes, I've never actually had one ruined by wet to the point of undeliverability.  A stray drop of rain might cause a splotch, but sometimes even those imperfections intensify the beauty of the envelope by enhancing our consciousness of its frailty, and the triumph of the post against a route fraught with dangers.

Anyway, you could just rub a bit of microglaze over the address itself and leave the rest to its fate.  The shimmer and sheen will be compromised on those bits under the microglaze, but the names and design/flourishes will still glow with them.  USPS doesn't theoretically need anything but the street address and the zip code to be legible for delivery.  And even then, they can sometimes find a way.

I'm actually in awe of our local USPS.  Once a friend sent a postcard from abroad - the only correct information on it was my name, city and state.  The building number, apartment number, street name and zip code - all wrong!  And yet, the card found me anyway.  Hooray for the persistence and dedication of our postal workers!

--yours, K

[Lyric]

Had to come take another peek this morning (6:55 AM).   

[K-2]

Another ink in action - the superb "Stargazer" (day 12) in a fountain pen with a 2.5mm nib, made by FF's own @darrin1200 of Timber Elegance.  What a beautiful pen!

@AnasaziWrites - I thought you might be interested in this ink's lettering performance, since you've got your eye on a full-sized bottle too.

@Lyric - it's not one of the gold sparkle inks, but you can see how well it works in a fountain pen on 24lb Southworth "parchment" paper (the sort you get at Office Max for printing up certificates), even in a drier writer than a Pilot Parallel.  x-height is 12.5mm.

and @Erica McPhee - it's one of the shiny teals.

The quotation itself is by Johannes Kepler, 17th Century Stargazer, who defined the laws of planetary motion.  It's the epitaph he wrote for himself a few months before he died, in a 17th century italic form.  Trans. "I used to measure the heavens; now I measure the shadows of Earth.  The mind belonged to heaven; the body's shadow lies here."

[AnasaziWrites]

@AnasaziWrites - In all my years of sending and receiving fancy envelopes, I've never actually had one ruined by wet to the point of undeliverability.  A stray drop of rain might cause a splotch, but sometimes even those imperfections intensify the beauty of the envelope by enhancing our consciousness of its frailty, and the triumph of the post against a route fraught with dangers.

Let's give it a test then.

Anyway, you could just rub a bit of microglaze over the address itself and leave the rest to its fate.  The shimmer and sheen will be compromised on those bits under the microglaze, but the names and design/flourishes will still glow with them.

No compromise.

I'm actually in awe of our local USPS.  Once a friend sent a postcard from abroad - the only correct information on it was my name, city and state.  The building number, apartment number, street name and zip code - all wrong!  And yet, the card found me anyway.  Hooray for the persistence and dedication of our postal workers!

--yours, K

The USPS was in the past more dedicated as a whole to delivering the mail no matter the difficulty.
The following letter was successfully delivered to its intended recipient quite some time ago:

Hill
John
Mass

[darrin1200]

Another ink in action - the superb "Stargazer" (day 12) in a fountain pen with a 2.5mm nib, made by FF's own @darrin1200 of Timber Elegance.  What a beautiful pen!

I am glad you like the pen and that it’s fitting well into your tool chest.
  There is a new package enroute 

[Erica McPhee]

It’s gorgeous! And it looks mighty fine in your Italic! 

[K-2]

Hi, Flourish Friends -- I am a little late to the party here, and maybe you all already ran out and got yourselves your favorites, but I just saw that in April Diamine released 50ml bottles of the Inkvent 2021 inks as "The Red Edition" for around $15US/bottle.  I've seen them online at Cult Pens (UK), Pen Chalet (on sale right now for $12US!), Vanness, Atlas, Goulet....

They're fountain pen inks, so most of them benefit from a little gum arabic if you're using them with a dip pen.  I think the shimmer inks are really beautiful in a very broad, juicy Parallel pen, but I've felt that the particles in the shimmer inks clog up the feed of regular fountain pens a little bit.  The sheens and standards are very beautiful too though.  Non-absorbent paper highly recommended to best show off sheen & shimmer (Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Tomoegawa, etc).

@Lyric - if you're still having trouble motivating, an exciting new ink might give you a little inspiration!
@Erica McPhee - so many teal inks in the collection!

--yours truly, K

[Erica McPhee]

Thanks for the tip @K-2 ! 

[Lyric]

@K-2 Yesss, a tip I can use just in time for payday.  Uwww, ordering a bronze fp tomorrow as well.  But, then again, you recommended this with parallel.  That's cool too since I have four of them.  And, yes, perhaps this will motivate me to begin for I S T I L L  have not.  Shame on me!