The Konrad Flex Pen and “Rome Burning” Ink – A Preliminary Review

Noodler's "Rome Burning" ink and Konrad Flex pen

As mentioned in my last blog entry, I recently won a brand new ink and pen as prizes in the Noodler’s Ink 2011-2012 International Art Contest.

As I unwrapped the package and looked over my prizes I thought, “hmmm, I wonder how the pen will write?” The ink was less of a question for me. “Rome Burning” is a brown ink with a couple of tricks to it. I LOVE the theme behind the ink – as Noodler’s CEO Nathan Tardiff describes it – “ ‘Rome Burning’ has a bulletproof patrician core color of Caesar’s purple with the colors of the inferno that wash away from it with excess liquidity.” So it’s a brassy-brown with a golden-yellow halo (similar to the halos seen in “Swan in English Roses” which is red, or in “Blue Nose Bear” which is blue) which when washed turns into a bulletproof purple color. Very cool! Since the purple part of the ink is bulletproof it would be superior to use as a writing ink for secure documents like checks. (I currently use Noodler’s Bulletproof Black or Kung Te-Cheng for check writing.) But as I always evaluate my inks for drawing first and writing second, “Rome Burring” doesn’t really do it for me.

Golden Browns are not my favorite browns to draw with, I much prefer reddish-browns like Diamime Sepia (see The Search for the Perfect Brown.)  The fact that the initial color washes out to another color is interesting but not as valuable for my uses. Despite that, “Rome Burning” is a welcome addition to my ink collection and will most likely be relegated to the category of writing (and not drawing) inks. No shame there.

Meanwhile, what about the Konrad Flex pen? The one I received as prize is the “Red Mesa” color which is a lovely red tortoise-shell.

First impressions –

The Konrad is a lovely feeling pen. The weight and balance are very good. It also looks very professional and sharp. It certainly looks like it costs more than its $20-$24.00 price. The Konrad has a lovely feature of a safety cap that screws on the back of the pen which prevents you from accidently twisting the barrel and letting out ink when you don’t intend to. When filling the pen you remove that little screw-on cap and can then twist the barrel to fill the pen. The filling mechanism is a slide piston fill converter that works very easily. 

Writing (ahem, Drawing…) -

This is a very smooth writing pen. One of the things I loved about the Ahab was the nib, which has a wonderful feel to it. It’s springy and well-constructed and makes a line with what I think of as “character.” The Konrad nib has a similar feel to it, but with the added bonus of being packaged in a medium-sized body. One of the things I like least about the Ahab is the size, which is really too big and heavy for my hands, especially posted. The Konrad is still a bit heavy for me posted but when unposted is a bit short.

Konrad pen tests

My biggest problem with the Konrad is the width of the nib. I much prefer a fine/medium width nib for drawing. My Konrad is most definitely a medium width nib. Although I prefer a medium nib for writing I find it a bit thick for drawing. Interestingly, the Ahab has a good nib width for me for drawing, as it runs thinner than my Konrad’s nib. I say “my Konrad” as I have no certainty yet that all the Konrads have exactly the same width nib. It’s quite possible that there is some variation in the nib width between pens. If there is, there could be a fine/medium width Konrad nib out there that I would find just perfect.

The nib flexes wonderfully and will produce a fine line with a very light touch. Perhaps that was my problem with the line width, I was applying too much baseline pressure. I suppose time and more experimentation will tell.

Summing up –

So what do I think of the new Konrad Flex pen? Overall, I like it. It’s a lovely, smooth writing pen with a wonderful nib. It seems quite well-made and is very attractive. It’s a good starter even after a few days off. The line, though a bit thick for my tastes, might be made thinner with a lighter touch.

Will I use it for drawing? Absolutely! (Although I think I’ll switch back to another ink…maybe good-old Bulletproof black.) Am I happy to have it? Yes! Would I recommend it to other artists? Yes!

I am a complete pen snob when it comes to drawing pens. As a pen & ink artist, I have to be. So I am very picky about my pens. But I would certainly recommend this pen to both artists and writers. I think it might be the best flex pen that Noodler’s has yet produced. If you’re looking for only one affordable flex pen then I would recommend this one, especially if you’re a gal with medium/small-sized hands like me. It seems perfectly made for us!

Cheers everyone and I hope you enjoyed these reviews. :-)

Adventures in Writing Part 2

Today is Howard Pyle’s birthday. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, he was an extraordinary “golden age” illustrator who was, among other things, quite masterful with pen & ink. In his honor, I have chosen today to give my new Namiki Falcon fountain pen a test run.

I was most interested in the Falcon as it has a unique nib. It appears to have a “beak” that curves down to the paper. It is also made of 14 karat gold which gives the nib added spring, allowing for some flexibility of line. As this was my first gold-nibbed pen I was curious to see how it differed from the steel nibs in my other pens.

Namiki Falcon nib with its "beaked" shape

Here it is in its box. As both Pilot and Namiki are the same company, the presentation boxes are similar. Although I have never been overly impressed by pens coming in “jewelry boxes,” I have to admit to something of a thrill seeing it presented so nicely when opened.

My new Namiki Falcon

This is a black resin pen with a SF (fine) nib. The resin pen is very light and I really like light-weight pens. I find them much easier to hold for long periods of time. The filling mechanism is similar to my Parker Sonnet and was easy to use. I have filled it with Noodler’s Bulletproof Black, an ink I know very well.

I began with a test page of practice strokes. I found that the pen holds a line very well, perhaps the best of all my pens. It also is light enough to “skip” well, very important for gradations of line in pen & ink. I liked using it posted (with the cap on the back of the pen) as I thought the balance was quite good that way. Without out it being posted, I felt that the pen was too light.

Varying line widths can be achieved with the Falcon by pressing straight down with it and not flexing it at all to the side. Although not as flexible as a true flexible nib pen (Noodler’s Nib Creaper Flex or Ahab for example) it is still flexible enough to create a variable line.

Scribbles and other miscellaneous marks felt good. Then I tried some stippling. Stippling is a mainstay of pen & ink work. Back in the day when I used “regular” pens, as my old illustration teacher used to call them, we would choose a nib like a crow quill, stick it into a nib holder, and stipple away.  I was curious how the Falcon, with its unusual nib shape, would handle stippling. I found it to be quite excellent. I also did comparatives while I was at it with several other of my most popular “working” pens. Of them all the Falcon and the Noodler’s Piston Fill fountain pens performed the best. Bless the little Piston Fill, it really does perform well. :-)

But back to the Falcon. Preliminarily, I have found that it writes quite smoothly and its delicacy and consistency of line makes it a most excellent choice for pen & ink work. The nib in some ways reminds me of a crow quill. The crow quill created really fine lines that led to quite delicate work. The problem with it, as I recall, was that it never held enough ink and would quickly run dry. Not so with the Falcon. With its ink reserve inside it’s likely to produce quite a few marks before needing to be refilled. ;-)

Next test for the Falcon is a real piece of artwork. I’ve got that under way now and will post it here when complete.

P.S. For those of you who might be interested in those sorts of things, for paper I was using a Stillman and Birn Epsilon sketchbook.  

Adventures in Writing Part 1

The unveiling

Yesterday I received my new Pilot Custom 74 fountain pen in the mail. I had been looking for a new writing pen for some time. My other two “top” fountain pens (for writing) were the Noodler's Aerometric/Eyedropper Ebonite Fountain Pen and the Parker Sonnet. Both pens are really in different categories, certainly in terms of price. The Sonnet was my first “expensive” pen clocking in at slightly under $100. The Noodler’s Ebonite pen (costing only $24.00) actually wrote pretty well and overall, I preferred it to the Sonnet.

I really enjoy writing with fountain pens. I really do. The feeling of the ink flowing through the nib onto fine paper makes the whole experience for me. Over time, I’d developed some choices that I thought might be the “it” writing pen for me. The Custom 74 was at the top of my list, at least in terms of pens that I could try out before buying. Some of my others choices were “internet order only” and although I trusted the reviews, I couldn’t justify buying one of them sight unseen at this point.

First look at my new pen

Thus my trip to World Lux in Seattle last Saturday and notification of their super sale on Leap Year Day.  The sale made my two new pens possible! (I’ll discuss the second pen, a Namiki Falcon, in a separate post.) Last night I had my first chance to ink up the Custom 74 and start writing. I chose to do some practice letters to try it out. It is not a calligraphy pen, nor is it a flex nib (for writing in varying line widths.) Hence my choice of copying out some monoline alphabets after my initial cursive practice. I totally love the feel and smoothness of this pen. It’s a dandy!

Showing the nib

My practice paper was good but not great – a moleskin grid notebook – but the ink is a favorite of mine, Noodler’s Kung Te-Cheng. Knowing Kung Te-Cheng ink as well as I do, I felt it made a good test ink for the new pen. As it turned out, I liked the combination of ink and pen so much that I think I’ll keep that color in that pen for the foreseeable future!

Writing practice

My new fountain pen seems perfect for monoline alphabets.
Draftsman and Bungalow are two of my favorites.

I am very much looking forward to doing more writing with my new fountain pen, the Pilot Custom 74!

P.S. For those pen fans out there who are curious - my pen is a blue demonstrator with a 14 karat Rhodium medium nib. Love the color by the way...it's very pretty. :-)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I can barely believe that we’re half-way through February! Time seems to be moving particularly fast at the moment.

So what’s been up at the studio? Well, as you all know, I have been posting weekly horse comics in a series called “Horse Life.” This has been a true delight for me and now that I’m into the 6^th comic I feel right in the swing of things. Today's comic is a Valentine's Day special and you can see it here.

Ever since the demise of “Privateer Princess” a few years ago, I have missed cartooning. However, since more practical (and lucrative) things usually take precedence over cartooning, I tend not to do do it. “Horse Life”  has given me both some well-needed closure from our failed web comic and a new focus for something fun to add to my repertoire. They say you should write/draw about what you know, and boy, do I know the horse world! I’ve been in it since I was 4 years old and have seen so many changes. It’s really remarkable to think about.

In other news, I have been doing some pen & ink practice based on Frank Lohan’s books, and have been having a wonderful time with it. More on that in a future post. But speaking of ink and pens, I recently caved and bought a Noodler’s Ahab flex pen.

My new Noodler's Ahab flex pen

These pens have been incredibly popular since they first came out a few months ago. I just had to try one. As I have mentioned here before, I have been loving the Noodler’s Nib Creaper flex pens and have been using them almost constantly for most of a year now. I was wary of the Ahab as it's much wider than it’s predecessor and I have small hands. 

Comparison between the Ahab flex and the Nib Creaper flex pens.
The Ahab is on the top and the Nib Creaper is on the bottom.
Note the size difference in the barrels.

So far I am a bit torn about the new pen. The Ahab definitely has a superior nib and the pen holds much more ink in the chamber. But I need to use it unposted as with the cap on the back it’s too heavy for me for comfort. I also find it a bit awkward for detail work. Ironically, Matt loves it (he has big hands) and thinks he’ll buy one for himself pretty soon complete with fast-drying Noodler's Bernanke Blue ink. ;-)

Noodler’s Flex Pen Review

Today's sketch done with my new Noodler's Flex pen with Fox Red ink

Well, here’s the short and sweet…I’m a fan. A big fan. I’ve been looking for my two new Noodler’s pens (Piston Fill fountain pen and Flex pen) for some time and didn’t even know it. Well, I did know it, but I didn’t know I’d find them in a Noodler’s pen. (I didn’t even know that Noodler’s made pens a few months back!)

I was able to get two clear demonstrator Flex pens from Goulet Pens this week and both seem to have their own characters. One, that I currently have filled with Noodler’s “Swan in Australian Roses” ink, has a stiffer nib and is much less wet than the other. I like the drier feel of the first pen and so took the other pen apart to reset the nib and feed. That helped quite a bit but the second pen still remains a bit more wet in its feed than the first. Funny thing is, I like actually like that pen better. It’s just a bit messier to use. That pen is currently filled with Noodler’s “Fox Red” and I’ve had red ink stains on my hands since I got it. Now I do take pride in that, but people have asked me about it. And the tissue I’ve been using to wipe off the nib does tend to look like I’ve just gotten a pretty bad bloody nose.

Noodler's Flex pen tests

The nib is medium/fine and seems to be the perfect width for my drawing style. You can get a reasonably good amount of flex out of it, although you have to press pretty hard. Of course too much pressure and you get undesirable “railroad track” marks. I’m still figuring out the exact pressure ratio.

The pen feels good in my hand and although it doesn’t have the heft of a more expensive pen, that really doesn’t worry me as I’m familiar with dip pens with cheap pen holders. The filling mechanism seems to work just fine and the pen is pretty attractive to my eyes. But the most important part is that it writes and draws well. I’m finding that the pleasurable experience of drawing with ink is definitely enhanced by a good pen. I really enjoyed my sketching experience today and realized that I hadn’t been having that sort of experience lately with some of my other pens.

Noodler's Flex pen tests page 2

So the summation is that I’m hooked! I’m looking forward to many pleasurable drawing experiences with my new pens. I’m going to do some experimenting with ink colors now as well. As you can see, I’ve been enjoying the red ink. I’m less enchanted with the “Swan in Australian Roses.” It’s nice but I feel ready to move on to another color. Next up for that pen is a nice brown. I am very fond of drawing in sepia ink

Many thanks to Rachel and Brian of Goulet Pens. They were so very nice and their videos have already been quite helpful. I’ll definitely be buying from them again!

Noodler’s Flex pen! Arrived safe and sound.

I’m going to pause briefly before part 2 of my pen & ink article to boast that my Noodler’s Flex pen and ink samples arrived today from Goulet Pens! Yeah! There was a true “pen stampede” to buy them last Monday. I give huge kudos to the folks at Goulet Pens who handled the rush with so much grace.

I haven’t yet tried out the pen but will be tonight or tomorrow. I’m very excited to see what it can do! Loving my Noodler’s piston-fill pen the way I do, I can only imagine that the Flex pen will also become one of my favorites. I was able to get a clear demonstrator model which I thought was a great idea because you can see what color of ink you’ve put in it. This seems very convenient if you plan to change back and forth between two identical pens with a different colors of ink in each.

Goulet offers ink samples in sets or individually and they have many colors and brands of inks to choose from. What a great way to experiment with new ink colors without buying a whole bottle. I ordered a Noodler’s sample set of nine inks and two others, Noodler’s “Golden Brown” and Noodler’s “Fox Red.” The sample set comes with several inks I’m particularly excited about trying, “Black Swan in Australian Roses” and “Apache Sunset,” both of which look like lovely colors.

So here I am at once doing a massive business rebuild (mentioned in a previous post) while getting itchy fingers to play with my new pen. I suppose it’s a great incentive to work a bit more tonight and then let myself scribble to my heart's content! :-)

Drawing With Pen & Ink - Part 1

"Jack" - pen & ink rendering done in a tight style.

Pen and Ink is one of my favorite mediums of expression. The feeling of quietly adding marks to a paper is very relaxing for me and always has been. Of course, this doesn’t apply when you’re in a hurry, but if you can get “into the zone,” you’ve got it made.

Many people have asked me over the years how I can work in a medium that really is quite unforgiving. Although there are ways to make corrections, by and large, pen and ink is a not an-easily-correctable medium. So how do I keep my stress levels down while working with it? Practice with a pen, first and foremost. Planning with a pencil before applying ink. Finally, a determined mindset that doesn’t allow space to think about my lines being wrong. If they are, well then, I correct them. If a piece goes too disastrously wrong, I start again. In that way it’s similar to watercolor. Planning can make a big difference in any medium that isn’t easy to correct.

For pen and ink work practicing “your hand” is very important. In other words training your hand and arm motions to be consistent. Having been trained as a draughtsman in the old school (pre-AutoCAD) I learned how to make pretty straight lines without a ruler and to make all sorts of other consistent and repeatable marks as well. This is so true today that my scrawly signature looks the same EVERY time. This is because I can copy the same hand and arm motions each time. Piece of cake really! I continue to practice making marks whenever I think of it. Buying my new Noodler's pen was a wonderful opportunity to catch up on my practicing last night.

Pen & ink practice exercises

Pen and ink illustration today (not cartooning which has always been stylized) is, by and large, pretty tight. That is to say, the popular rendering styles of the current day tend to be highly accurate and photographic. This wasn’t always the case. Classic pen and ink styles have also included looser and more stylized drawings, as were common in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

As an example here are two pen and ink drawings by well-known artists. The first one is by Henry Pitz from the mid-20th Century and the second is by Claudia Nice from the late 20th. Similar subjects but handled quite differently. Which do you like best?

By Henry Pitz

By Claudia Nice

In Part 2 of this article I’ll talk about a classic pen & ink book and some of the history of the field.

Falling In Love All Over Again

My new Noodler's piston fill fountain pen
Did I mention that I got it in turquoise? I love turquoise!

Okay, okay I'm a pen snob. I admit it. I have many drawing pens and am constantly searching for “just the right one.” Recently I got so disgusted while working on salable clip art that I went back to using nib pens for my studio work. Thus far they're the only pens that have given me the line quality that I've been looking for. Of course, while they're wonderful for studio use, a nib pen is not a good choice for outdoor sketching. Not practical and extremely messy if your ink bottle finds a way to leak. So what to do?

I have a Parker fountain pen that I just love for writing and drawing too, although it has a bit of a heavy line. Recently I have been reading about the Noodler’s Flex pen and was interested in trying it out. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one reading the good reviews (including Nina Johansson’s, thank you Nina for the great review!) and the pen has been sold out all over the Internet. And though I have inquired in no less than four states at pen shops, no one has it stock.

A fan of Noodler’s ink, but with no previous knowledge of their pens, I went to the University bookstore in Seattle (a great store by the way, in case you ever are close by) and tried out another Noodler’s pen, the piston-fill fountain pen. It was love at first line! The nib is medium-fine and creates a wonderful line. The pen is lightweight and Matt says that it looks very good in my hand. (He’s even more of a pen snob than I am!). It’s true that it’s a single line width, but it’s such a nice pen that with a Pitt brush pen along for adding thicker lines, I’m all set. The barrel twists to fill with ink and it seems to hold much more ink than many pens with ink converters. The windows in the barrel let you know when your ink supply is getting low. After a weekend of drawing with it, I’m totally hooked. Kudos to Noodler’s for making a great pen!

Here's another sketch I made with my new pen and watercolor pencils. It's a canid skull from the "Wolves" exhibit at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

Canid Skull, pen & ink with watercolor pencil

PS. I did manage to order a Noodler’s Flex pen this morning from Goulet pens. What nice people! They also sell ink samples so I’ve got a few colored ink samples coming along to try out in the new Flex pen. After I’ve had a chance to try it out, I’ll let you all know how it stacks up against to my new favorite turquoise Noodler’s piston-fill pen. My hope is that together, they'll be an unbeatable pair.