Our Exclusive Diamine A Leap of Faith is Back!
Our exclusive Diamine ink has a gorgeous sheen with the right pen combination! Pictured here is a swab on a page from the Col-O-Ring mini ink testing book.
After being sold out since Scriptus Pen Show last year, our Phidon exclusive Diamine A Leap of Faith ink is back in stock! We’re so excited it’s back and we get to share it with you again. Our shop is the only place anywhere in the world that you can pick up this ink, but it’s easier than ever to get a bottle now that we have our online shop.
A Leap of Faith was designed as a limited edition release for our 10th anniversary celebrations, and this is the latest run of the colour. It’s been in and out of the store for a few years, and it never really stays for long because of its popularity with collectors and first-time enthusiasts alike. A lot of its popularity rests in its colour and its special properties.
Leap of Faith was designed to be a colour that was suitable for everyday writing while still having a pop of fun. In our opinion, we think that this ink writes fairly balanced, leaning into wet, but your experience with it will largely depend on the pen that you are using it with. The ink is a deep blue-black with purple undertones and a red sheen. We often refer to it as a dark ultraviolet. To get the most out of the sheen, we recommend using a broader nib and fountain pen friendly paper, especially something like Tomoe River! This will help the ink to write wetter and really have time to develop the sheen as it dries. It also dries nicely, unlike some other sheening inks, so you don’t have to worry about it being sticky even after it’s dry.
Like most dark shades, there are a bunch of different colours that work together to make A Leap of Faith. All of those different colours mean that A Leap of Faith is also great for watercolour effects! The ink is dye-based, so it is not waterproof and will spread and run when it is in contact with water. Unless you’re looking for a waterproof ink if you’re a bit clumsy with your coffee, you can use the running colours to your advantage! If you’ve ever seen a painting done in fountain pen ink, you know how beautiful they can be! Just load Leap of Faith up onto your watercolour paper and then use a water brush to spread it around where you like. Not to spoil it, but you’ll see so many lovely colours appear on your page when using A Leap of Faith: pinks, purples, and different shades of blue. You can even still get the sheen if you let the ink pool with minimal water!
A Leap of Faith is a joy to use with the watercolour effect. This painting was done exclusively using the ink in a Pilot Metropolitan (medium nib), white gouache, and a water brush in a 3.5” x 8.25" Hand Book Paper Co. Travelogue Watercolour Journal.
We also find that Leap of Faith is great for journalling. It is easy to look at after long writing sessions, but it is also enough colour to show your personality in a minimalist way. Because it is relatively balanced, it will also dry more quickly than other wetter inks, meaning you can turn the page without worry of smudging the ink.
A Leap of Faith was named for the, well, leap of faith that was opening Phidon Pens almost twelve years ago! We’ve enjoyed every minute — even the inky fingers — and we’re especially appreciative of your support as we transition to having an online store as well as our brick-and-mortar in downtown Cambridge. Starting and developing a small business can be scary, but we’re so thankful for all of you who have supported us over the last decade and are supporting us into the future as well.
The ink comes in the standard Diamine glass bottle that holds 80ml of ink. You can find the ink in store or through our website. Our photos here have been colour corrected to show the colour as close to reality as possible, but please remember that factors like screen brightness and blue light filters may affect your perception of the colour. If you want to see more swabs, let us know! We love this ink and we’ll be happy to share more photos with you.
As you may have seen, on top of A Leap of Faith, we recently got a huge restock of Diamine inks to our store. This is the first truly large haul since last autumn! If you’re an ink aficionado, you know that Diamine won’t ship to retailers over the winter for fear of their bottles breaking, and then everything was delayed with COVID. No more, Diamine is back! Thanks so much for your patience.
If you were going to design an ink, what colour would it be and what would you name it? Let us know in the comments!