Daily Report : Helpful tools of the trade

Today I spent quite a few hours working on the newest book illustration. The challenge for me in this piece is not to overwork it. This is actually much harder than it sounds. If you overwork a pen & ink piece you end up with very uniform contrast. If you make this particular mistake it won’t matter if your details are beautifully drawn or not, people won't notice them for the lack of contrast.

I have talked quite a bit in this blog about inks and fountain pens. These are, of course, critical parts of an artist’s arsenal but there a few other tools that are also worth mentioning.

The first is a reducing glass. This glass does the opposite of what a magnifying glass does, it reduces images. Funny eh? A reducing glass is the perfect tool to use for pen and ink as you’ll always want to reduce your drawings before publication. (They look much better that way.) If you’re doing pen and ink work with the expectation of reducing it later, you’ll need to be aware of how the image will look when reduced. After all, you don’t want your carefully constructed lines compressing too much and turning into solid black areas in the final piece. (Hint: you can also do this by standing your drawing up and walking across the room to view it. I do this also.)

My second suggestion is a white correction pen. I use a Pentel Presto Pocket Correction Pen to correct small inking mistakes as I go. It’s a very handy tool. Once I've scanned the final image into my computer, I'll make further corrections in Photoshop. The problem with doing this is that I won't be able to redraw my lines as nicely with my stylus and tablet as with my inking pens, the fluidity of line is just not the same for me.

Adventures in Writing Part 3: Getting the Feel of a Falcon

Old Farmhouse Door (5" x 7" pen & ink)
Namiki Falcon pen with Noodler's Black Ink on Stillman & Birn Epsilon paper.

As promised, the next test for my new Namiki Falcon fountain pen was to use it to create a piece of art. This exercise is the result. I was debating whether or not to put it up here as, frankly, it is not one of my better pieces. Not better for several reasons that have nothing to do with the pen used to create it. Briefly, and for the sake of critique, I will say that the lack of success of this piece is due to drawing errors made in perspective and the lack of quality reference material used to draw it from. Having cleared that up, I can now move along to the true purpose of this post, which is to describe how the Falcon performed as an art pen.

As an overview, the Namiki Falcon creates a lovely line. It’s consistent and a pleasure to draw with. My pen has an SF (fine) nib. It creates a fine (narrow) width line, as fine or finer than anything else I have to draw with. Its balance is wonderful and it’s a light pen, even posted, and my hand did not get fatigued while drawing. There were a lot of different marks used in this piece and the pen handled them all extremely well. As the Falcon’s nib is only semi-flexible, for some of the darkest marks I decided to use a Noodler’s Flex pen. But those marks were in the vast minority. The vast majority of the marks were made with the Falcon. It was an interesting test to switch back and forth between the Noodler’s Flex and the Falcon. When switching it was easy to notice the difference in quality between the two pens. But that's to be expected as the Namiki Falcon costs 10x the price of a Noodler’s Flex pen.

So what were my lasting impressions? Would I use it again? Was it worth the price? To all of these I would have to say a resounding Yes! I’m not certain that I would use it as my only pen for a pen & ink piece. I like having a few different pens available for creating different textures and tricks. But I would use it alone for a delicate black & white illustration or one that was to be tinted with watercolor later.

So kudos, Namiki Falcon, for your first inking performance and welcome to my pen case!

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. :-)