Most felicitous greetings of the season to you all and thank you for travelling along with me in this inky journey this month.

The last ink of the calendar is called "Myrhh the Merrier" ha ha I see what Diamine did there.

It's a pretty luscious dark teal with a sheen that I can't quite see in this light, but we'll see if we can take a better look later. And it has shimmer as well, in pretty blue. So it's both a dessert topping and a floor wax and very pretty it is too.

I thought I'd take a bit more time for our finale, and seeing as I'm staying at a seaside hotel for Christmas visiting my sister, the sea was on my mind. With the colour nice and nautical I wanted to create a sea monster that wouldn't look out of place on a mediaeval map of the seas... Here be Dragons and all that. And I started thinking about placoderms and sclerotic rings and gulper eels.

And this chappy appeared after 2-3 hours.

Now I'm not seeing any sheen there, but I don't have any sunlight to hand right now.

But the sparkle shows up pretty well.

#inkvent #FountainPenink #Dippen #DrawingWithoutaNet
#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineMyrhhtheMerrier #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt

It's the second last day of the Diamine inkvent calendar for 2025 and this time it's another pigment. This one is named Antler.

It's flowing really well with the dip nib I'm using and is doing everything I ask of it.

In case you can't read my writing

"We had been 5 days surveying the surface of the frozen planet. Fatima noticed that one of the huge herbivores, the ones we had been calling megacorns due to the large single antler-like protrusion growing from the back of their heads, was a bit different. It was nearly 4 times the size of the typical megacorn, almost 6 metres long, and its protrusion was apparently carved with animal and bird designs, as well as eyes and stars.

As far as we knew, we were the first people on the planet. Were there inhabitants? And how impressive would they be, to be able to subdue a creature like this for what would have taken many hours for a skilled carver. Or was this a tame beast wandering? The most intriguing mystery of the place yet. We weren't keen to try going up to pat the creature yet.

(c) Alicia 'leece' Smith."

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#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineAntler #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt #sciencefictionart

Today's inkvent is no. 23, and it's called "Let It Snow". Fat chance here, with a boiling hot Christmas day bearing down on us in Perth. It's going to be very much a shelter in place sort of day I think.

But back to the ink, it's a very pretty cerulean, made even prettier by the chameleon shimmer.

Again, this yellowish paper that I'm using - which is fine, great, recycled - isn't going to show it at its brightest.

But it will do for now.

#inkvent #FountainPenink #Dippen #DrawingWithoutaNet
#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineLetItSnow #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt #dragon

Well I am catching up, as yesterday I was flat out.

So yesterday's ink, The 21st is a Extreme Sheen ink, but unfortunately on this paper it does not really show it's extreme sheen. It's called Chaos. I thought what could be more chaotic than a flying cat so there we go. It's quite pleasant. It's a nice rich burgundy and the wash coming out from it also gives it a nice pink background. I will have to give it a go on some other paper. Perhaps I might do a drawing featuring all of the extreme machines that I have, which I think would be quite thrilling, at least for me.

Today's - the 22nd - ink is called Pineapple Spritz and it is both a pigment ink and a chameleon sparkle and unusually for a chameleon is quite happy to show off it's sparkle for the camera and you can see it quite clearly in the image. It's a nice dark gold. It's quite metallic in its appearance.
The dragon is enjoying blowing smoke rings :-)

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#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineChaos #DiaminePineappleSpritz #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt #dragon #cat

It's day 20 of the Diamine Inkvent fun, and I've been thinking I haven't drawn a chimera for a while. So here you go.

This ink, a chameleon shimmer called "Ambience" is a warm browny orangey red and the chameleon sparkle is following the usual pattern of being quite subtle.

Chimera disrespectant just about.

Tried to catch it for you but it doesn't really photograph well in the time and lighting that I had. See if you can see any sparkle below. Oh well, it was fun to draw, and the sparkle is there but it's tiny.

#inkvent #FountainPenink #Dippen #DrawingWithoutaNet
#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineOvercast #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt #chimera

Today's ink is called 'Overcast'. It's a pleasant grey teal sort of a shade. But again I'm using the recycled paper sketchbook, and it's got this yellow shade, and it's very absorbent with almost no bleed. I dared to try a wash, and nothing doing, the ink pretty much just sat there like it was welded.
An interesting experiment anyway, and quite startling.

You know, you're doing a watery sort of creature, and you'd quite welcome a bit of aquatic swooshiness but no, not this time. By this time I was a bit unnerved so I just finished up the drawing. I could have drawn into the damp paper to see what would happen but I wanted to get this posted, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do any more to this particular drawing, so perhaps I shall save such adventures for tomorrow. Only 6 more to go, but after that I have the 2024 month box from Van Diemen's Ink, and that can see out the rest of the month, along with the Rainbow Scarab.

#inkvent #FountainPenink #Dippen #DrawingWithoutaNet
#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineOvercast #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt #Dragon

Well, circumstances prohibited posting yesterday but I did manage to catch up with the #DiamineInkvent2025 17 and 18.

No. 17 is a standard ink, a perfectly pleasant purple called "Gala". I've switched to another notebook with recycled paper and it's being okay, but it has a slight yellowish cast, so that will affect things. It doesn't have as much bleed as I expected so that was interesting. I think I'll not use a wash on it at this stage though, I'm not familiar with the paper and how it will react.

The #dragon was fun to draw. I tried to get the sense of a cat sitting with its back to you and turning its head around to look. You can be the judge of whether I was successful.

No.18 and I'm really happy because they've given us another ultrasheen . It's called "Laurel" and is an earth dark green, and then the sheen is a rich red in the right light.

I don't think this paper is as sheen kind as the Clare Fontain, but it is definitely there, and it's quite beautiful, as the #gryphon will attest.

All in all a pretty nice drawing experience.

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#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineLaurel #DiamineGala #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt #Dragon #Gryphon

Well, I did draw this yesterday, down in Mandjoorgoordup at my sister's place, overlooking the sea and chilling out with her and mum. But it's not super convenient posting on the tablet, so here we are now. And hopefully you'll have another one within 12 hours or so, because it's Art Group today at the Shed, and that's always a good opportunity to settle into a drawing.

So yesterday's ink - the 16th is called Ruby Taffeta, and it's a chameleon shimmer. In the close up of the dragon's eye the different colours can be made out in the sparkle. I like this one and it washed really well too. I'm pretty much at the end of this sketchbook, I'll have to see how the other one is going.

People participating in #MonsterdonSavesChristmas this is the sort of artwork you might be looking at winning.

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#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineRubyTaffeta #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #Dragon #FantasyArt

I was incredibly busy at the West Australian Boardgaming Association on Saturday - it was our big end of year bash and we were gaming from 11am to 11pm. Thusly I am now catching up with the Diamine Inkvent fun, so you get a three for one!

No. 13 the manticore is in an ink called Molten Basalt, it's a standard and is a fairly classy looking steely black blue.

The sugarplum fairy - No. 14 is drawn in a pigment ink called "Mittens" which cracked us up when we read it. It's a pigment ink, and it's holding fast against the wash from the "Frostbite" shimmer that I drew Number 15 in, the unicorn.

It's a very nice blue when washed, and its coppery sheen is intriguing. You can just make it out in this image detail below, but it's super subtle.

And that's us all caught up.

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#NoAI #Diamine #DiamineMittens #DiamineMoltenBasalt #DiamineFrostbite #OriginalArt #PenandInk #Inkvent2025 #DiamineInkvent2025 #FantasyArt #Manticore #Unicorn #Fairy