My Sketches – Using My Van Dieman’s Inks

Here’s a few quick sketches I did this week using my Van Dieman’s Ink.

Here is Sea Turtle. It’s a lovely vibrant green ink. I used a bit of Robert Oster Melon Tea to make my turtle sketch pop a bit.

On my swatch card there’s a ton of pinky-red sheen.

I used my Pilot Prera with Calligraphy Medium (CM) nib to create this sketch.

Another lovely color from their Underwater series is Royal Starfish. This is a unique purple ink color with pink and blue undertones (depending on paper used).

Here is my feather sketch. The pink and blue undertones are absolutely gorgeous.

Here is a shimmering beauty called Parrot Fish. A vibrant teal green color with purple shimmering particles.

I enjoy seeing this ink slosh around in my TWSBI ECO.

I have to add while using this particular shimmering ink, I’ve had a few clogging issues with my ECO. I gave my bottle a couple of shakes to get the shimmering particles to blend with the ink. I immediately filled my pen with ink. That was part of my clogging problem. Too much shimmer in my pen. I should have waited 45 seconds to let the particles settle a bit in the bottle and then fill my pen. You can see from my writing sample I had a lot of shimmer across my journal page.

I ended up storing my pen overnight with it’s nib up. The next morning I still had a clog issue. I could see a clump of shimmer on my nib. I dipped the nib and feed into a jar of water and wiped the nib clean. I wrote out two pages with my pen to get the initial shimmer flowing. Now, my pen sits (horizontal) on my studio desk with no clogging issues. Life is very good!

I have three more Van Dieman’s inks to swatch and sketch with and hope to have some time this weekend to play with them. I’m enjoying this ink brand and it’s becoming a favorite of mine. Right up there with Diamine and Robert Oster.

Inks: Van Dieman’s Ink Underwater Series: Sea Turtle, Royal Starfish, and Parrot Fish (shimmer)

Pens: TWSBI GO with Stub 1.1 nib. Pilot Prera Transparent Pink with Calligraphy Medium (CM) nib. TWSBI ECO Clear with Stub 1.1 nib.

Papers/Journals: Rhodia. Canson Mixed Media. Stillman & Birn Beta. Stillman & Birn Alpha.