31/10/25. InkMonth.

Aaaand then another work demanding break from blogging etc. News to come on that soon I hope. That said - I've had a lot of happy adventures in art and ink over the past few weeks which has been utterly lovely.

Since last I blogged there's been the London Pen Show, the Pelikan Hub, the reaction to Splinkos AND the small matter of an Inktober that, for the first time ever, I followed the prompts for. I know. Shocker.

I could, and might, say more about any of the things below but in the interests of brevity...

London Pen Show:

DELIGHTFUL. The first two day LPS and wonderful to be at. I went in with a ... constrained... budget (thank you teaching career) which I'd all but blown in the first 15 minutes on the three purchases I was determined to make (Bungubox: Sunflowers of Arles and dip pen and Esterbrook Charlie Brown) and then the rest of the weekend was hanging out with fellow pen and ink nerds, a short jaunt to Shepherd's Bush market and ... well that was it really. Just a wonderful weekend of pen geekery, chatting with pen companies etc.

Pelikan Hub 2025: 

Fabulous. The London hub was held at the Grocer pub in Spitalfields as normal and I, like an idiot went to the wrong tube station so arrived not late but not early. A wonderful vibe at the event, ink was given out, chats were had, ink samples were picked up for the Inktober picture and I painted on the flag :) Prior to arriving I went to the Moleskine store, more of that in a min...

INKTOBER 2025!

I tend to do an Inktober thing but not follow the prompts (so I generally call it InkMonth). That's not a diss on Inktober, the copyright furore etc but more that the prompts don't do it for me and the one time I tried to do the prompts the picture fell apart as I was doing it. This time though I wanted to go for the prompts and started in a trusty pocket Moleskine pad* with some text images and pre-planning from mid Sept onwards.

*yes I know Moleskine isn't fountain pen friendly, yes I know all of the other arguments. Once every other page is glued together the formularity of a Moleskine pad delights me, I've drawn in a hundred pads and have 150 ready and waiting. I almost always only ever buy them on sale/eBay/T K Maxx and that's just my jam thanks.

Once planned I ... well I didn't start until Oct 13th after London Pen Show as prior to that I'd been so busy with the Splinkos. I wasn't burnt out per se but did occasionally wonder if I'd end up not doing the Inktober after the planning phase, or just enbd up tidying the pad and doing the occasional social media post from that.

And then the pad work demanded to be let out and became this!

31 pictures spread out over an ... A2 (?) image made in around 17 days. Another social media fail - wish I could have posted one time lapse a day but juggling work, family etc proved to the the camel that this straw wouldn't fit on top of.

Some faves and call outs :) 

For a start the picture was 85% created using ink sampes that had been given to me at the London Pen Show, Dutch Pen Show and Pelikan Hub. Sometimes to request (has anyone got any Golden Beryl I can have 2 ml of? etc). So if you've every given me an ink sample to play with: THANK YOU!

Of all of the inks did I have a favourite? Some sang to me more than others: Golden Beryl by Edelstein/Pelikan. Sunfowers of Arles and Kingfisher from Bungubox and Diamine Earl Grey Tea all spring to mind but, if you asked me tomorrow, I might say a different couple :) One that I IMMIDIATELY adored was Robert Ostrer's Venom. I've danced around a couple of RO inks in the past and liked both so it's been an ink company on my mind... But Venom? WHAT an ink. Loved it. sadly down to 2ml now...

The ink vials don't always look this bad incidentally. Sadly Golden Beryl - one my absolute mega faves - decided to leak a bit. Fortunately they were all in a sandwich bag but even so. Messy. 

Pen wise? Well the much loved Moonman demonstrator and Lamy Joy were filled with Diamine/FPUK Greyt Expectations. The Bortoletti Fonderia glass dip pen did most of the work on the page and I used a selection of much loved Esterbrook, Black Robin, Ritter's Writers, Ferris Wheel Press and Scriveriner pens off and on. Oh and a Pelikan Twist which I LOVE but forgot to add to the picture. 

HOWEVER it was still calling out to me and I was loving ink a lot AND one of the plans for the Inktober picture was to draw it ONLY using ink samples that I had picked up from the London and Dutch Pen shows. In the end - I don't tend to pick up many samples - I had to grab a few from the Pelikan Hub but that image remained true to the core plan - only small vials of ink for each Gremlin.

And so here it is! I'm currently TERRIBLE at social media and have 3 or 4 big projects/work things etc in my head and that's absolutely enough (however with Inktober and Nov 7th thing completed or nearly so I'm hoping that Nov can be a stop, still and plan month). 

Some VERY cool things in my mind for 2026 and that plan starts now... sort of. More to come and, hopefully, social, blogs and explainers a bit more regularly dripping out of my pen...