The week after Christmas can be a great time to wind down and spend time with family. It can also feel a little empty and like there's not much to do, but on the Isle of Man there are lots of fantastic exhibitions and activities to see or get involved with. Join me, as I share some activities to brighten these darkest weeks of the year and find out which inks made it out of the Diamine Inkvent advent calendar since the last blog post.
What's On This Winter
There are lots of free exhibitions and winter activities available over the next few weeks in the Isle of Man. I've included some of my favourites below:
23rd - 24th December 2023 'Christmas Crafts' at the Manx Museum - The last of their Children's Christmas Crafting Weekends in Douglas.
25th December 2023 - 5th January 2024 '12 Days Wild' Manx Wildlife Trust - The Wildlife Trust's festive nature challenge to encourage people to explore and help nature during the days after Christmas. I've signed up and will be sharing my exploits on the blog and social media. As there's a full moon around the time of the suggested stargazing activity, a moonlit walk may be a better alternative!
11th November 2023 - 6th January 2024 Paul Parker 'Mann and Machines' Exhibition at the Hodgson Loom Gallery, Laxey Woollen Mills.
21st October 2023 - 14th January 2024 Crucible: An exhibition by Robert Jones MRSS House of Manannan, Peel.
18th November 2023 - 14th April 2024 'HOME' Manx Museum, Douglas. A creative response to our Island home as seen through the eyes of artists from The Creative Network.
25th September 2023 - 31st March 2024 'By Design' Manx Museum, Douglas. An exhibition of recently digitised prints and posters from the Manx National Heritage collections.
Deadline 4th March 2024 Wild Mann Nature Photography Competition Manx National Heritage. For professional or non-professional photographers. This is a contest for pictures that showcase the Isle of Man's natural environment, so keep your eyes open and a camera handy while out on your walks this winter!
Inkvent Inks Week 3
I decided to combine all of this week's inks into one tree sketch, the obvious choice being a Christmas tree as we're so close to Christmas. I have added a video of the process below with an indication of when I'm using each ink. Many of the inks contain shimmer particles that don't show up well in the video, but are visible in the close-up photo at the top of this post. For the previous inks in the calendar, see the blog posts here and here.
Day 15: Walnut (Standard Ink)
A nice, but very standard kind of brown ink. I'm sure I'll find it useful in sketches where I need a flat brown colour but there's not enough interest to make me invest in buying more.
Day 16: Merry and Bright (Shimmer Ink)
A green ink with gold-green shimmer. Merry and bright is a great Christmas colour but too bright a green for me to use regularly. I'm glad to have it though and may use it for bright accents.
Day 17: Lavender Frost (Shimmer Ink)
Lavender Frost is a muted grey-purple colour with a silver shimmer. It may be useful for subtle, hazy sketches. I look forward to playing around with this some more.
Day 18: Blizzard (Shimmer Ink)
Blizzard is a lovely teal-blue with a silver shimmer. I love the colour of this ink and think it will be fun to use again. With water, it becomes almost a grey-blue shade and I used it on top of the bright green of Merry and Bright to create a more muted green, as seen in the video below.
Day 19: Cinnabun (Scented Ink)
Cinnabun is the second scented ink of the calendar so far, and much more pleasant than the very artificial smell of Sweet Dreams. Cinnabun, unsurprisingly, smells of cinnamon and made me feel even more Christmassy as I sketched the Christmas tree. The colour is a golden brown that complemented the darker brown of Walnut. I liked this ink but don't think I'll use it much due to it being scented. Perhaps I'll write my Christmas cards with this ink, next year.
Day 20: Astral (Chameleon Ink)
Astral is a very dark brown-black colour, and as a Chameleon ink, contains shimmer particles that change colour with the viewing angle. The shimmer in this ink ranges from blue to green to silver and works well against the dark background colour. I like using water-soluble dark inks for the interesting tonal ranges that can be achieved with water, so I have a feeling that I'll be testing this one out further.
Day 21: Tranquility (Chameleon Ink)
Tranquility has a magenta base colour and a Chameleon shimmer that ranges from gold to silver and green with the viewing angle. There was a nice variation in tone when water was added but I can't see me using this for sketching due to the unnatural colour.
Free Music for Videos 👉 Music by Juan Sanchez - Rita's Christmas Song - https://thmatc.co/?l=002675CF
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