New Fountain Pens

This week I ordered from Fountain Pen Revolution. I got 3 new pens and a free pen. I have only inked up one so far. It was the beautiful red Himalayan with the FPR Ultra Flex nib. 

 The Himalayan has chatoyancy. It is the only pen I have that has chatoyancy like a real stone.

 I got an Airmail pen with the red swirls on top and the clear body. The free pen is clear demonstrator pen. The red and clear pen in the middle is discontinued Serwex 362. The Serwex pens were under 5 dollars this past week and probably won't last, because the company making these pens is gone out of business. 

 This is the steel Ultra Flex nib on the Himalayan. 

I recently became interested in flex pens. I now have some G nibs in X750 and X450 Jinhao fountain pens. I have a Noodler's Ahab and the FPR added to my drawing pen collection. 

 The Ahab is the orange and yellow pen. The red/gold flecks is X750 Jinhao. The red with black lines in it is X450 Jinhao. The X450 nibs and feeds can fit in a X750 I recently found when I accidently washed one down a sink drain. I got a pack of 5 nibs and feeds with free converters for under 10 dollars. That's enough to repair or even make 5 pens. 

 The G nib is very pointy and long. It flexes a lot. It will make the finest line with no pressure applied. One thing about it is a little feeder hole at the point where the pen nib is coming out of the section. This area gets gummed up with ink after using it a while or on really hot days in front of the AC. I keep a small cup or vial of water nearby to rinse the nib. I can tell when it is gummed up with ink because it makes a bubble when I turn the converter to squeeze out some ink. These nibs were actually made for dip pens so they are supposed to be rinsed, dried and put away. They will rust over time. I have had mine for months and no rust yet. It is easy to get a pack of the nibs online for future repairs. The pens are easy to take apart and clean and repair. Also these pens can be bought with this nib for around 5 bucks. 

 The orange and yellow pen has the Noodler's Flex nib. I had to look on youtube for instructions to get started with this pen. I learned how to heat set the ebonite feed. I also learned I could do the same thing with plastic feeds. I put my water cup in the microwave until the water gets boiling hot. I take the nib and hold it onto the feed where it should actually fit as it would inside the pen. I use needle nose pliers to keep it held tightly and not burn my fingers. Then dip the pliers, nib, and feed into the super hot water. Hold for a minimum of 20 seconds. I put it back in the pen and test. I have had to repeat it more than once. So it is pretty messy, but I use food coloring or something that will wash away easily.

To see me draw a little flowers with the flex nibs, check out my youtube video link below

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvw3ZPBc0Bs

When I first got into fountain pens I didn't know some inks were easily washed out with water. Several years ago I even got a note from the mailman about an envelope getting hit with rain and washed out. I bought a ballpoint tool pen for everyday use. This pen is amazing. The capacitive touch tip on one end screws off and has to little electronic sized screw driver bits inside. I also bought some waterproof ink to use in everyday fountain pens too.  

Decided to get back into drawing

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.