- A Fleeting Ripple
i need a holiday: summer ink collections
You can’t smell anything and the world sounds muffled, like you have a fishbowl over your head. It’s sunny outside, but it’s cold. You can’t trust the thermometer in the house. Everything tastes like plastic, the coffee bitter. Today, the roll of toilet paper and baby cream for your nose is your best friend.
I am a very visual person, therefore everything starts with a mood board or a colour palette. It can be just scrolling through Pinterest for two minutes before getting dressed for the day or scribbling with my currently inked pens before starting to work through the day’s tasks. Colours and shapes help me understand what I’m feeling at the moment and why. It has become an exercise in mindfulness over the years. Just taking a moment away from life and trying to understand myself. Like journaling!
I am also sick due to the stress of the past week and really needed a break. And what do I do on a sick day? Swatch inks, apparently. So, I pulled out my brushes, pens, inks, old photographs and put on a great movie. This is also partly inspired by Mountain of Ink’s monthly ink palettes, I look forward to them all the time.
One of my favourite things to do around the house -when my camera actually has some battery- is to take photographs of my plants bathed in sunlight. This one is Harry the Hoya. I don’t generally name my plants, but this one came named to my house. During the winter, my plants aren’t generally very happy due to the lack of sunlight, but since nicer days are here, they’re growing a lot. Harry’s new leaves start out their life with a dark pink-red colour and then lighten over time to a cream or powder pink. It’s fun to watch it grow!
The inks:
Montblanc Burgundy Read (for the new leaves)
Graf von Faber Castell Moss Green (darker green frames of the leaves)
Diamine Classic Green
Robert Oster Avocado (these two are close to the variations of green on the plants with a lot of depth)
My second photograph is also a plant and -well- a huge puzzle. This plant has been rooting in an old apple juice bottle for some time now. But the puzzle… I almost went crazy while making that puzzle because it is a colour gradient of yellow-orange-red. I started it during the day, in sunlight all of the different shades were pretty recognisable. Then, the night arrived. In the warm glow of the house lights, all of the colours suddenly became a bright orange. When it was finally finished, I thought it deserved the honour of being framed and put as a background to my plants. During dawn, the sun rises from that side and the frame reflects all of that warm orange glow through the room. It’s pretty amazing to watch the sunrise from our couch now.
The inks:
Diamine Pumpkin (bright orange!)
Diamine Peach Haze (slightly different bright orange!
Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrun (light flecks on the leaves)
Robert Oster Eucalyptus Leaf (umm, leaf?)
A part of my summer holidays are generally spent road trip-ing around the Aegean Sea. The sea, the bright blue sky, a lot of archeological sites… I couldn’t have skipped out on my favourite bright blue and grey-ish inks.
The inks:
Robert Oster Summer Storm (this also reminds me of dusk, when we’re about to leave the house and I’m super excited)
Diamine Earl Grey (it’s redder on Midori paper, but it still reminds me of shadows of harsh sun)
Rohrer & Klingner Blu Mare (my favourite sea blue)
Diamine Mediterranean Blue (this is the exact colour of the skies with the scorching sun)
Last but not least, my favourite sneakers. I’m not a sneakerhead by any means and I put my sneakers through hell by wearing them everywhere. This is not helped by the fact that I wear only sneakers during the summer. These are a little more special because they’re so colourful, they’re my “special” shoes. It means that I will at least attempt to keep them clean. I cannot say the same thing for my Vans with salt water stains on them.
The inks:
Graf von Faber Electric Pink
Pennonia Tihanyi Lila
Diamine Honey Burst
Sailor Jentle Tokiwa-Matsu
As the last week of school nears, I am longing for a summer break even more than usual. Looking through some old photographs and swatching inks cheered me up so hopefully I’ll get through next week fine. Hopefully it cheered you up too!
Thank you for reading!