Inkventpocalypse 2025 Day 11
We're off our schedule again, thanks to some unexpected body issues (embodiment is a scam! Sleeping shouldn't be a contact sport. Chronic illness is so random!). But I'm back for Day 11 of Inkventpocalypse and this is a very light, cold, group of inks with a controversial watercolour & a not-for-me tea.
First up is Enigma Stationery Inkvent 2025 which is a new to me brand (though I've known of them for a long time) Kiwi Inks in Lavender. It's a very light, lightly shading violet/lavender ink that is very hard to see when wet, but dries down darker with a bit of pink and blue multishading (may be due to the paper that it didn't separate more). I did a doodle of a lavender plant/flowers. I think this ink would be nice for journalling in a broad or calligraphy nib.
Next is the Diamine Inkvent Teal Edition 2025 in Brrr! (three r's AND an exclamation point!) which is a light prussian/navy blue pigment ink with blue shimmer. It inititally seems like a basic blue with glitter, but it being a pigmented ink with shimmer is very unusual. I don't think I've come across another pigment ink like this. Pigment inks are typically thicker and more opaque due to the nature of the particles that make up a pigment, but this is interesting. Still, it's blue. I doodled a frozen row of icicles.
Last up is the Colorverse Colorvent 2025 Day 11 colour of Blue Hole. This confused me at first, as I was thinking it was a new astronomical phenomenon (like a Black Hole or a theoretical White Hole) but nope, it's terrestrial - a really deep hole in the ocean. I doodled the one near Belize. The ink is a watery, aqua blue with some multishading of yellow, as well. Not sure how I feel about this one. The door to this one says: "From within the blue hole, the sky revealed a sea of unparalleled clarity."
Next up we have the watercolourvent, which is a basic colour that, along with white, gets a bad rap in watercolour circles.
Greenleaf & Blueberry watercolour advent with shells 2025 Day 11 is Lamp Black, pigment number PBk10 (note, the G&B page for Lamp Black that I've linked says it's PBk6. I'm not sure what the discrepancy is, though it seems that Graphite Black is PBk10, which G&B also sell, and Lamp Black is PBk6). This is a dark, neutral inky black, slightly granulating watercolur. It's very dense and easy to go overboard on. The painting prompt is a lump of coal.
Now one of the issues I had for decades with getting into watercolour was the insistence (by whom I have no idea) that black wasn't to be used in watercolour. That you could/should mix black from opposing pigments, or that black (and white) didn't really exist in nature, blah blah. This is nonsense. If you like to paint with black, paint with black. There are so many black pigments out there, all with different properties and tones. Greenleaf & Blueberry have at least a dozen different types of black pigments as watercolours and I love it. (Though I think they mainly were developed to use in calligraphy, I like experimenting with them for life and figure painting.)
Well the swatch was hard to get to dilute, it's very inky. The doodle of a lump of coal just looks like a blob in the corner, but it's very coal-black! So many of these prompts end up just being amorphous blobs, but for the colour giving the cue. It's fun and hard to make anything make visual sense this small, in one paint.
Last up is not my favourite flavour in the world, I gave it to The Boy to finish, as I just am not super into it (he loved it).
The Day 11 tea from Friday Afternoon Tea Advent Calendar is Mycroft's Mint. It's a very green (not super toothpastey, though) mint tea made from both spearmint and peppermint. I had some of it and it's very minty. It just was not for me. I appreciated the addition of spearmint, but I just was not into it. I don't love minty teas, in general. I do know a lot of my friends (and readers) do love mint, so you'd probably really love this one!
That's it for Day 11! It'll take a few to get back into the swing of things, as I have some intense dental work coming up that will require another break, but I've not got a deadline, since we're already in 2026, might as well take our time. I'm not in this for anything but the love of colour and the novelty of having a space to put my nonsense. Welcome back & thanks for coming along for the ride!
Now for the questions: Do you like mint (in tea or in general)? What do you think about black paint in watercolour (or otherwise)? What kind of use could you think up of for a pigmented (waterproof) shimmer ink as opposed to a dye-based (water-soluble) shimmer ink?
-subgirl the inkygeek