(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)
I have a small treasure chest of Van Dieman's ink samples to review! Which means reveling in multicolored inky fingers for weeks, and sharing the joy with you all. Here is the first installment of three reviews of this line of inks.
First up is from their Hollywood series—Elizabeth's Violet Eyes, inspired by Elizabeth Taylor. It's a lovely balanced purple, not too warm or cool. It's well behaved and shows some nice shading. It's a wet ink with a longer dry time, and it survived with some faint lines remaining in the water drip test. This ink had some lovely chromatography, splitting from bright pink to magenta, to a bold turquoise. It's easily the most practical of the ones I reviewed for today, and while it's tame enough to be an everyday ink, it has a nice bit of excitement to it, too.
The next ink I tried was the Enchanted Woods Shimmer from the Midnight series. This one is a bright emerald green with a silver shimmer to it. It's not shy on the bling, either. You could probably use this ink to signal passing airplanes. This ink has great character, showing some shading even through all that shimmer. It has a slow dry time, no water resistance, and the chromatography shows a beautiful yellow-green-blue progression. The ink description indicates that it is supposed to have a red sheen in addition to the silver shimmer, but I could not get one to materialize, even where the ink pooled.
The third ink I tested somehow out-blings the Enchanted Woods. It's another from the Hollywood series, this one called Ruby Slippers. Wicked witches will no doubt be in hot pursuit of this ink. I don't recommend it for fountain pens, though, for several reasons. One, its very wet and feathers dramatically. Two, the particles settle almost immediately and require constant agitation to remain suspended. And three, it's highly water-resistant, and I'd be concerned about staining. Even in the ink description on the Vanness site it suggests dip and brush pens for this ink.
The last one I reviewed this week was the insanely gorgeous Huon Midwinter Festival, from their Tassie Seasons line. This ink is enchanting. It's a rich sepia with an antique gold shimmer that makes me think of pirates. The chromatography for this ink was like watching a fireworks display--or a bonfire. From char brown to smokey purple to bright orange and yellow--this is clearly a complex ink. However, I strongly advise against using this in a fountain pen unless it it one that is easy to disassemble and clean. I let my sample vial sit for some time while I waited to get to this review, and when I picked it up to use it, I could not get the shimmer particles to come away from the plastic wall of the vial. Even with shaking, they stayed stuck. I had to knock the vial against my desk several times to get the shimmer to disperse. I assumed it was because it had sat for a few weeks. So I set it back down while I reviewed the other inks. When I picked this one back up to review, the same thing happened again, even though it had been sitting for less than an hour. I don't think these particles will behave nicely in a pen feed. For dip pens or brushwork, though, this is one of the prettiest browns I've ever used.
I still have six other colors to review, but my impression so far of the Van Dieman's inks is that they are very good with color, and all-in with their shimmer, but they fall more into the category of art-supply inks than writing inks. Which is not a bad thing--but I don't know if that is their intention. I do know that I would not put two of these four into a fountain pen. And I also have concerns about being hunted by flying monkeys.
(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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