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Diamine – Weeping Willow The ink maker from Liverpool is one of the staple brands in ink-land. They consistently produce solid inks for a very reasonable price. Each year, Diamine brings out an Inkvent Calendar with 25 inks to try. This Weeping Willow was the Day 13 selection of the 2023 edition. As we will see, that number 13 is totally appropriate… I recently added a bottle of this ink to an order so I could claim free shipment. I went for this particular ink because the colour looked intriguing – the pictures of ink splashes showed a complexity that spoke to me. Weeping Willow’s base colour is a beige-looking olive-brown with tons of multi-hued undertones. I can see green and pink, but also darker brown and yellow tones that drift to the surface, and work together to create a complex, but balanced, kaleidoscope of hues that looks amazing. What you get is a truly unique colour with tons of character. The name “Weeping Willow” is chosen well: it reflects the multi-hued brown of a willow tree at the start of autumn, just before the falling of the leaves. I filled up a couple of pens with this ink, and started writing and sketching with it – just to get an impression of how it feels. Immediately, it became clear that the number 13 fits this ink so well. Weeping Willow is a demanding ink – superb for drawing, but a really difficult one for writing. It only works with a narrow range of pen, nib & paper combinations. Choose wrongly, and the ink sucks big time. Choose wisely, and you’re in writer’s heaven. So it truly combines the unlucky-lucky aspects of its number. This Diamine ink tends to write very light and with super extreme shading in most of my pens. With dry writers, the ink is quite frankly unusable. First, lubrication is fairly bad which makes writing with a dry pen a very unsatisfying experience… yuk! Second, shading gets really extreme with wispy lighter parts that are barely there, making the text almost unreadable. Both of these issues can only be solved by using seriously wet writers. So far, an unlucky number 13. Once I found the right pens for it, the ink blossomed and showed its true beauty. It gets an almost water-colour aspect, with multi-tonal looks that rise to the surface in the darker parts of the text. The result has a mesmerizing quality to it, and makes for a truly unique experience. Use the ink for drawing, and all these multi-tonal qualities come together to create colours with wonderful aesthetics. And so, definitely also a lucky number 13. To illustrate the colour span of this Diamine ink, I did a swab on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. Weeping Willow has a very wide colour range, with tons of contrast between the wispy light and darker parts. This translates to extreme shading when writing, too harsh for my taste with most of my pens. I advise the use of wet pens that stay at the right side of the contrast range – you still get heavy shading, but the result now becomes well-balanced with great aesthetics. On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – the ink behaved perfectly, with very limited smearing. Water resistance is mostly absent though – some ink remains on the paper, and with great effort you might be capable to reconstruct some of your writing. But no, not a water-resistant ink. The ink’s chromatography looks stunning, and shows that kaleidoscope of colours that surfaces so easily with this ink. Nice! I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. My normal Safari test pens were completely useless, so I picked wetter pens for the writing samples. On each scrap of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation An ink scribble made with a Pilot Capless M-nib fountain pen The name of the paper used, written with a Kaweco Sport with BB nib A small text sample, written with the Pilot Capless M-nib Source of the quote, written with a wet Pelikan M405 Demonstrator with cursive italic M-nib Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Pilot Capless) The multi-paper writing test shows another of Weeping Willow’s weaknesses. This ink only works well with certain types of paper, even when using wet pens. Hard-surface coated paper won’t cooperate with the ink: not enough ink is left on the page with the lighter strokes, which leads to super extreme shading that looks harsh and totally unappealing. Not nice at all. Furthermore: light olive-brown and yellow-toned paper – not a good combination! So you should restrict yourself to mostly white and ivory paper. But still – there is that narrow zone where paper/pen/nib come together perfectly, and manage to create something beautiful. I warned you: a very very demanding ink, that you need to spend some time with to get to know it. I guess most people would throw their bottle out of the window, but I enjoy that search for circumstances that can make even the most demanding ink shine. And shine it does! When all things line up perfectly, the results are totally worth the trouble. Below you can find some enlarged details of writing samples. The extreme shading on Tomoe River and Iroful paper is obvious. When you have a full page of text, such extreme shading makes it too hard to read the text with ease. More absorbent paper tames that extreme shading, and brings the contrast to a tolerable level. Writing with different nib sizes The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing (written on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). At the top are some samples written with my Safaris – a bit too light for an easy read. Descending the page, I started using wetter pens. It’s fairly obvious that readability improves, and that the ink starts to show off what it is capable of. Related inks To compare Diamine Weeping Willow with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. Weeping Willow shares complexity with Swan Illusion, but is a lot more yellow than the Mont Blanc ink. Inkxperiment – Exploration As a personal challenge, I try to create interesting drawings using only the ink I’m reviewing. I find this to be a fun extension of the hobby, and these single-ink drawings often present a real challenge. These inkxperiments allow me to explore the colour-range nuances that are present in the ink. I love doing them! The drawing reflects my personal journey of exploration in the world of math and physics. I’ve always been in awe of the complexity of the world around us - from the smallest to the largest scale. And it’s by building models of reality that we can try to gain an understanding of how things really work. Since my university days, lots of new discoveries have been made, and I’m now slowly building up my skill-set again so I can better appreciate and understand all that new science. The drawing's background symbolizes reality – cells in a petri dish? nano-tube material? stars against the microwave background radiation? The connected cubes floating above this reality represent the models we build to make sense of all that complexity. And then there are the people on their life-long journey of exploration… I started with an A4 piece of HP photo paper. I put some circular cutouts on the paper, covered it with a kitchen towel, and dripped some water-diluted Weeping Willow on it. This produced a really nice background. I then coloured the circular parts with cotton swabs dipped in water-diluted ink. Next I drew in the cubes that appear to be floating as a space-station above reality. Finally, I added the explorers and used my fountain pen to add some finishing touches. The end result gives you a good idea of the colour range that can be achieved when using Diamine Weeping Willow in a more artistic context. An interesting ink to draw with! Inkxpired – computational art I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper. I started by applying a cartoon art filter that emphasized lines in the drawing, and as a side-effect created a more grainy background that works quite well. I then used a couple of colour filters to shift the hues to blue tones, and added a few extra explorers to the scene. Conclusion Diamine Weeping Willow is a difficult and demanding ink that has lots of shortcomings and could oh so easily be dismissed. But spend some time with it, learn to know all its nooks and corners, and you’ll find that right combination of pen, nib and paper where this ink will surprise you with some unexpected greatness. I really enjoyed the journey of discovery that this ink provided me. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Pilot Capless, M-nib Backside of writing samples on different paper types

Robert Oster Signature - Melon Tea Robert Oster is an Australian ink maker that is well-known for its unique range of colours. On his website, he describes our shared love quite eloquently: "Robert Oster Signature originates from one of the most famous wine producing regions of the world, the Coonawarra district of South Australia, an idyllic setting with great influence on the senses. There is my inspiration. It's a joy to share it with you." Well, we are certainly fortunate to have inspiring ink makers like Robert Oster to satiate our thirst for glorious inks. In this review, I take a closer look at Melon Tea. Catherine from Sakura provided me with a sample of this ink to play around with - much appreciated! This particular incarnation of a Robert Oster ink is a kind of brown-olive, with a chameleon trick. Let's get this out of the way before continuing with the review - this ink looks different when viewed in daylight or under artificial light. To illustrate, I've taken a picture in both lighting conditions and placed them side-by-side. Under artificial light, Melon Tea leans towards the green, while in daylight it's definitely a brown-looking ink. A strange effect, and just something to be aware of. My scanner simulates daylight, so the scans in this review will show the brown side of this ink. The ink provides good contrast with the paper, which is good. It writes smoothly even in finer nibs - it doesn't feel dry at all, unlike some other RO inks. All in all a satisfying writing experience. Colourwise I prefer the ink's looks under artificial lighting where it is a nice murky olive-brown. In daylight, the ink looses some of its charm (my personal opinion). Melon Tea shows subdued shading, with not too much contrast between the light and darker parts. I prefer my shading this way, finding it more aesthetically pleasing. The ink itself is a complex mixture with multiple undertones. In washes, the pink undertones in the ink easily come to the surface which provides for nice-looking effects. To show you the impact of saturation on the ink's look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Like most Robert Oster inks, Melon Tea has no water resistance to speak of. Even short exposures to water obliterate your writing. All you're left with are some pinkish smudges. This is also evident from the bottom part of the chromatography. Smudge resistance is also lacking - the ink smudges easily, but at least you're left with perfectly readable text. I've tested the ink on a wide variety of paper - from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On every small band of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturationAn ink scribble made with an M-nib fountain penThe name of the paper used, written with a B-nibA small text sample, written with an M-nibDrying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib)Melon Tea behaved perfectly on all paper types, with no visible feathering - not even on Moleskine paper, which is quite a feat. On the other hand, the ink looks rather sickly on Moleskine paper, something I also noticed with other RO inks. Overall, the ink dries fairly quickly near the 10-second range. I also show the back-side of the different paper types at the end of the review. No troubles there, except with the Moleskine paper, which shows a bit of bleed-through. All in all, a very well-behaving ink. Inkxperiment: cave of swimmers I've recently started to experiment with ink drawings, keeping things simple and more-or-less abstract due to my lack of drawing skills (which can use lots more practice). But I find it to be a fun extension of the hobby, and have found single-ink drawings a nice challenge. For this drawing I got my inspiration from the Cave of Swimmers in the movie "The English Patient." I used a Q-tip cotton swab to draw some circles and surrounding dots. This is the backdrop for the cave paintings. The surrounding border was done with Melon Tea, smeared out with a moist Q-tip. The resulting drawing gives you some idea of what can be obtained with Melon Tea in a more artistic setting. Conclusion Robert Oster Melon Tea is an olive-brown ink with some chameleon properties. I quite like the ink's look under artificial lighting, less so in the more dull brown colour shown in daylight. The ink behaves superbly on all paper types, writing smoothly and with good contrast even in the finest nibs. I'm personally not smitten with this particular Robert Oster creation. I would have liked it much better if it kept its greenish tinge in daylight. For drawing, this ink has some potential, due to the complex undertones that easily surface in washes. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib Back-side of writing samples on different paper types