#inkvent

Starting off with the first pull of lovely merino wool

This is the colour Candy Floss, which conveniently corresponds to the colour Cotton Candy from the pattern. That makes it easy to remember. I am thinking this year the spun yarn will be included in the post for the next day, because I’m busy most days and only really have the evenings to spin and that just means bad lighting for photos.

Now the ink

It's impossible to show all the nuances through pictures, or even video, but it is so very pretty! Lots of sheen (also, ignore all the splotches made by my inky fingers and due to thin paper)

Yesterday we spent the whole day at the Winter @efteling which, if you’ve never been, is an illustrator’s imagination come to life in Europe’s oldest theme park (the one Walt Disney visited that inspired him to open one of his own…)

So the day’s Inkvent was a sketch of the breathtaking thatched entrance hall. It’s hard to adequately describe how beautiful and detailed it is, and this sketch almost insults it - but I needed to draw those peaks with the only pen/ink I had to hand.

And since i will be leacing for home on the 20th and dont want to take the calender with me i opened the first door today (it has 25 days)

I’m the worst at keeping this thing up (flipside: BEST at tumblrweeds), but I’m wrapping up my 2025 Inkvent over on bluesky. A page a day of practicing calligraphy and trying art in a new ink. I tape my finished pages up on the wall beside the desk where I do all this, and looking at them makes me feel happy and grounded. I thought I would fail in a bunch of ways (especially the art); I didn’t! I think I was able to make some beautiful things and some beautiful letters, and when things weren’t going splendidly they were good reminders that I’m learning. I like learning. I love the places where I’m beginning to feel steady enough to try to do things my way. I love feeling like there could be a my way!

Next year I want to take some classes and try to connect with the local SCA. And I want to make more beauty, or at least try at it. Those attempts felt so worthy.

day 11: ultra saturated orange-red ink with gold-green sheen, the sheen is extremely visible on this one, and can be diluted to get a light pink, which was quite unexpected for this color combination