Warming up the pen

"Our Neighbor's Tree," pen & ink, Sara Light-Waller

I did a little pen & ink sketching this afternoon. This is our neighbor’s tree across the street.The ink is sepia in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook.

The tools of a pen and ink artist

I thought it might be fun to share my go-to pens for pen and ink work and writing. I do have other fountain pens, but these are the pens I keep beside my desk, ready to use at any time. The inks are my favorite drawing inks — Noodler’s Black and Diamine Sepia. Although the Diamine is not waterproof, it is such a perfect sepia color (and I am VERY picky about my brown inks) that I tend to use it more than any other brown ink in my collection.

Pens from left to right — Zebra Disposable Brush Pen, Pilot Custom 74 with medium nib (blue demonstrator), Noodler's Konrad Flex Pen (red), Namiki Falcon SF (black), Noodler's Konrad Ebonite Flex Pen with a Goulet #6 medium two-tone steel nib (mottled brown), Noodler’s Nib Creaper Flex (black), Noodler’s Nib Creaper Flex (clear demonstrator), Pilot Pocket Brush Pen – Hard (blue), Micron pen.

Inks – Noodler’s Black, Diamine Sepia

Pen case - Saki P-661 Roll Pen Case with Traditional Japanese Fabric - Dark Red (from Jet Pens)

Noodling around today (no pun intended)

I am really enjoying my new Diamine Sepia ink. I love the color and I especially love using it in my Peewee Banditapple Carnet notebook. Somehow, because it's such a little notebook (3.5" x 5.5"), it encourages me to freely sketch unimportant and yet fun things. Here's what I came up with today. Silly, but fun! ;-)

Not all Noodler’s Flex Pens…

..are created alike, apparently. I have recently discovered this fact. I was aware that the original feeds for the Noodler’s Flex Pens were all handmade, which is why the originals came out in such small batches. The newest pens have machined feeds and so are available in much larger batches.

The two Flex Pens from my original purchase remain the best of the six I now own. I assume that both of these pens have the handmade feeds. The ones I have bought since have all been spotty in their quality. Two have them have been good, one iffy, and one not good at all. In a recent post I complained about getting my flex pen in the "Arizona" color to work well with my new Diamine Sepia ink. This pen has never performed well for me, it’s too hard to flex and the ink just doesn’t flow quite “right” through it.

Yesterday, when I saw a black Noodler’s Flex Pen at the University Bookstore in Seattle, I tried it out, hoping that it had a good feed. It felt quite good and I bought it immediately. Although many people were very excited when these new black versions which came out recently, I hadn’t really thought about getting a black Flex Pen. Frankly, I prefer the colors (see this post). But the feel of the pen is the more important thing, as it’s the smoothness of the line that makes ink work really enjoyable for me. It’s hard to find these pens in physical stores to try out. They are most easy to find online, but then you can't try them before you buy. I felt lucky to get my chance to try one out yesterday.

I gave my new Noodler's black Flex Pen a proper test run when I got home..

When I got it home I immediately filled it with Diamine Sepia ink and gave it a proper test run. Here is the result. I feel pretty good about this new pen. I think it’s going to be a good drawing pen for me (even though it doesn’t match the ink that’s in it!) Full steam ahead now for more drawings in Sepia ink!