Recently my blog has gone through some changes. I am not sure I understand any of the technical things with Google. But I am going to keep blogging about random art stuff and dolls.
Back in the 90s I used to draw a lot with technical pens. Those pens drove me nuts, because they required constant maintenance. I eventually got too busy with my career to keep up the habit. I even lost, broke and ruined a few pens before I gave up completely.
I started to notice fountain pens across the Internet and I got curious. Is this the new pen for me? I had a few bottles of ink around here that I didn't want to waste. I even found an unused Rapidograph pen I put back for retirement. It was like a gift I sent myself into the future.
I headed on over to Amazon and began my search for some pens after hearing about them on youtube. The Jinhao 750X is a nice medium nib with a lot of weight. It gives me a heavy black ink line from my Koh-I-Noor Transmix ink. The same ink in one of the Jinhao Swan pens is fine and slower to ink, so it isn't quite as heavy when drawing quickly (Swan pens have a 0.38mm nib and 750X have a 0.5mm nib). It is hard to explain really. The type of paper, the speed of the drawing and the size of the nib all have something to do with the line quality. This led me to doodling with the different nibs and inks to see what would happen. Everything I read about all the different pens and inks is usually about how they write. I am definitely not a writer. If I write with my pens it is just to keep them busy, because they work better with use.
I really love the colors of those Jinhao 750X pens. I almost started to buy every color I could find but wait. I only have 2 hands, what will I do with every color of 750X pen? I do everything with a touch of OCD. I did get the 5 pack--gold, silver, rose gold, black and purple--also under 20 dollars on Amazon.
This piece of note paper is hot pressed paper. It is slick and shiny and doesn't feather the ink. It makes excellent practice paper for doodling with the nibs and inks to see what they do. Someone just gave me the paper, because it doesn't take cheap ballpoint pens very well at the office. I would love to know where to buy some more all sizes. I used my Rapidograph on this doodle. It is so fine a line, I can barely see it in the photo. Already the 0.13 mm nib needs cleaning. Yes. I am using the Koh-I-Noor ink with it that comes with these pens. That is the new TWISBI Go in my hand and the nib is right on the Lamy Vibrant Pink ink.
I received Lamy Vibrant Pink ink and a new TWISBI Go pen from The Goulet Pen Company today. I loaded the new pen with the Lamy Pink ink. At first, I couldn't really tell the difference in the Winsor and Newton Scarlet color I already had. The Winsor and Newton is not really a fountain pen ink I don't think. But I have been using it in the cheaper Jinhao Swan pens. I just dip the pen nib in water or twist the universal convertor a bit to get it started when it seems to be drying out on me. So far I have no problem with the Winsor and Newton inks. I don't think I should put them in an expensive pen that is hard to clean or care for like a Rapidograph.
What I was going to say about the Lamy pink is that it has a property called shading. I always called it tint or grading. The color goes from the lighter pink tint to a darker pink as you mark over it again and again. Of course, there's a limit on how strong the color will ever be. I haven't really used it enough to see the golden flecks in it, but I could see it in the bottom of the glass ink bottle. I am really liking this pink. It is really fun to doodle with this color. The TWISBI Go pen has a very nice nib and is better than any of the Jinhao pens so far. I think it was worth the extra bucks to try it out. It's got me really curious about the other pens artists love like the Ahab. I hope to try that one in the future with the flex nib.
I even put some acrylic based inks in the Swans pens and that worked for me but I had to use water to dilute them when they won't start. To me this is okay, it is just watercolor in a pen to go. I got 12 Swan pens for under 20 dollars on Amazon. It was more than the number of colors I had to experiment with.
I titled my doodle Frequencies of Chaos. It is modern art for a Barbie diorama.
The thicker lines in my doodle were done with the Speedball fountain pen. I was wondering why Speedball of all the companies didn't have a fountain pen. I was not really a big fan of the dip pens. I'm looking around for pens and inks to try with a broader nib and found a Speedball fountain pen. I really blew a fuse over the cartridges not fitting in the pen and staying. But I put a universal convertor in it and saved my day. I accidentally mixed my Speedball red ink with black ink while saving it from falling out of the pen and splattering me. But I loved the new dark red it made. I personally think it is smooth as butter and a great little pen now that I played around with it and put a convertor in it. The price was under 20 dollars again. It has lots of color cartridges I can use by taking them out with a syringe like I use on my printer ink cartridges.
I actually wanted to start drawing my dolls, but when I changed to a new kind of pen, I had to start looking at my technique. The photo below is a tear sheet from a doll I drew in 1991. The line and stippling in this size of art doesn't come close to fountain pen lines in my opinion. But should it be?Does it have to be? I was told way back in the day that a lot of the detail can be lost during reproduction. I don't believe that still applies with current technology. Maybe I am wrong but it makes me happy to try new things, so I will.
