Van Dieman’s Ink is an Australian two-person team ink manufacturer that somewhat new to the market who, like Robert Oster, started on eBay. They were the Jinhao Australia distributor back then and were branded as such but now they have broadened out to their own brand with a decently large selection of inks. There are five series of inks: The Original Colours of Australia (the inks they first made), The Hollywood Series, The Wilderness Series (the latest release), Pigment Inks, and The Midnight Series which Bonfire Night is from.

Anthony van Diemen, a Explorer, in an effort to explore the "Great South Land” - subsequently named "Nieuw Holland” and eventually Australia - sent Abel Tasman on an exploration mission. When Abel Tasman discovered the large island below the mainland of Australia he, thinking it was a large territory, named it Van Dieman’s Land after his patron. Eventually it would be renamed Tasmania.

Back in 2015 Brian Goulet made a video and accompanying article about sheening inks. I love sheen, in fact it's a major deciding point on whether I grab an ink or not, so this should be something right up my alley, but it wasn't. The article conflated markedly differing ink characteristics, and made quite curious decisions of which inks were chosen to exemplify the topic. He also left a number of very sheening inks off the list that Goulet Pens carry - ignoring the many sheening inks that they don't carry - such as Diamine Bilberry).

The main issue with the article (I'll just talk about the article) is that in it Brian conflated sheen resulting from the ink and shimmer/glitter resulting from particles or pigments in the ink. Now I concede that there isn't a well established term for these 'shimmering' inks. There is and was, however, an established term for the shine resulting from the ink itself: sheen!

(Moving forward I will call them sheen and shimmer)

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Ink Review: Van Dieman's Ink Bonfire Night

Sheen vs Shimmer (and some good sheeners)

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