Diamine Inkvent 2024: Day 9 — Wishing Tree
Day 9!
It’s the ninth day of Inkvent and today’s ink is Wishing Tree.
The color/properties:
Diamine Wishing Tree is a Chameleon ink — a special kind of shimmering ink with particulates that are supposed to change color depending on the angle at which they’re viewed. The base color is an earthy grey-green with heavy brown undertones. The ink shades into its darker brown tones with a soft gradient when writing in cursive, and a more prominent cut between light and dark tones when writing in print. The chameleon effect is more noticeable here than in most of the Diamine chameleon inks — I mostly noticed pink, but occasionally I would also see blue, green, and yellow.
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
How did it perform?
Wishing Tree unfortunately has an awfully dry flow and wasn’t well lubricated. The writing experience was overall unpleasant, but despite that, I didn’t run into any clogs, hard starts, or skips during my writing, and the shimmer distribution was mostly even and consistent. There were a few moments during my writing where the shimmer came out more concentrated than normal. Nonetheless, I think this ink would do well with a high-flowing feed and wetly-tuned nib.
Unsurprisingly, after cleaning, there was a heavy coating of shimmery haze along the inside of the barrel of the pen and along the piston crown, as well. It was easy enough to remove with a cotton swab, though it required the disassembly of the pen to accomplish.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
My personal thoughts…
A Wishing Tree isn’t something I was immediately familiar with, and after some light research, I suppose it could be associated with the holiday season, but it also seems to have a much broader cultural significance around the world apart from this winter holiday.
The ink itself does give off a lot of festive and holiday vibes though. The whole thing leaves me with mixed feelings because while my experience with Wishing Tree wasn’t great, I still really like the color and shimmer combo, and I wouldn’t mind trying this in a wetter-tuned pen in the future because I have a feeling there’s a lot of potential to be had.
Written in a Leuchtturm1917 notebook
More Images/Info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 3 nib units including a Fine, Medium, and Broad. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook