YouTube video is published at 19:00 UK Time today, 3 Feb 2024

It’s been a few weeks full of adulting, leaving me drained of energy. Dealing with fraudulent use of my PayPal account lasted a week, and I still have a couple of things to sort out that I’ve not been up to doing. Thankfully, it was all mostly sorted, my account is as secure as possible, so phew!

I’ve also had a lot of ‘people-ing’ (for me) to do, which has been lovely but has also left me drained.

I have had enough sense to take time for myself to sleep, rest, and do things that relax and soothe me. The last thing I’d want to happen is another burnout like I had last year at almost this exact time. I seem to have mostly avoided that this time. Seems that I’m finally learning to take care of my energy/stress levels.

I have done some art, some that are landmark pieces for me. I will scan and share them over the coming days/weeks. These works have taken a week or more of work to do, an unusually long time for me. But it was worth it.

The drawing above I did earlier today for a YouTube video. It was lovely to do. A small drawing. Detailed. Intricate. Diamine Oxblood ink and a Tom’s Studio Lumos duo refillable fineliner pen – I used 05 and 02 nibs.

I have to say that the Lumos pen was a delight to use! The weight of the barrel actually stopped me from pressing so hard with the nib; there’s some kind of counterbalance effect going on, methinks.

I may just have to invest in another of the Lumos pens (the duo version again). That way, I can have a range of nib sizes in just two beautifully made pens.

Although pricey at £99 (including P&P), I expect to save money on buying Sakura Micron or Uniball Unipin disposable fine-liner pens. That has to be a good thing.

The pen comes with 9 different nibs. It’s unlikely I’ll use all of them, though you never know! But I know I can order more nibs and new ink reservoirs as needed.

Oh, and the ink reservoirs are easy to fill; when you want to change to a new ink colour, you just wash them out with water.

Only water-based dye inks with no glittery bits in them are recommended. Though Rohrer and Klinger SketchINK was mentioned in the information that came as working well in the pens. I believe SketchINK is waterproof. It is after it’s thoroughly dried – I just checked! So that is something I may consider experimenting with, especially as it comes in a range of lovely colours!