10 pen and ink combos for November. One from each of the previous 10 months in 2022.
I was originally going to theme this months palette “Comfy” but I started thinking about which inks and pens I would deme comfy and then realized I was thinking of pens and inks I had used in palette’s already this year that I enjoyed using. Then it hit me – I was already going to do a sort of review of the Monthly Samples – I could use one combo from every month palette this year! Matchy matchy. Since April I’ve been keeping track of the performance of each combo, so the only ones that would be tricky is Jan – Mar. Those will probably be wild cards. (Oooo except Magic Green from March!)
And it was EASY. Because in each month there is usually a combo that I enjoyed memorably. There were two difficult months, and very little info on how I felt about the pens I used in January thru March, but I ended up with 10 pens I am extremely excited to use. I did end up swapping out the pen paired with three of the inks – I’ll explain in the list. And to determine the best choice for the January and February pens I had to sort of look at how long and how often I would use the pen. There were a couple I remember filling early on and then reluctantly keeping them filled but not wanting to use them… I did that, of course, until I remembered this whole monthly change of pens and inks is supposed to be fun. And if I don’t like a combo nowadays I give it a day or two and then clean it out. Hopefully that won’t be an issue this month?
Tada! The list of inks and pens is below.
Let’s look at our options this month, shall we!
Twsbi Diamond – Prussian Blue (F), Diamine Inkvent 2021 Subzero – this ink was originally in a Twsbi Eco and I decided the Diamond is just a little step up.
Bonecrusher7Studios – Monet (1.1stub), Ferris Wheel Press, April Showers – this ink was originally in my Gravitas, but it was using the custom nib, so I figured I’d just put the nib in one of my favorite pens and go from there!
One of the things I liked about this palette was that I could use the three favorite pens without them just being extra to the palette, they are actually part of it. And I am really looking forward to a nice cozy month with pens I know I like, even when they get a little blocked and won’t write. Because the inks and pens are WORTH it.
Some of my choices were combos that I continued using into the next month. And the palette actually really came together. I was sitting and contemplating it, and Husband looked over my shoulder and was like WHOA That looks incredible! 🙂 Hope it goes as well as it looks!
Spoopy Monster Pens! From left to right, Skeleton, Ghost, Witch, Purple People Eater, Frank the Demonic Octopus, zombie, Frankenstein’s Monster, Pumpkin Head, Vampire, Werewolf.
I really like this theme! I did end up swapping out two pens because Mad Science Pen Company made them with the EXACT names of two of my monsters, and I NEEDED them. Ahem. Solid palette this month. I think my favorites are definitely split between the Mad Science Pen Company pens and the Sailor pens. But it’s pretty close.
Yep, had 4 entire Sailor pens in my palette this month.
I really like the MF nibs from Sailor and the shape and balance of the Pro Gear Slims. They feel effortless. Pretty pen colors too. And the inks behaved nicely as well.
Mad Science Pen Company, Hooded Ranger, Proton
Mad Science Pen Company was someone I’d had my eye on from Instagram for a while. What first hooked me was the ”hooded” aspect. I’d never seen something like that before and I ended up really enjoying the aesthetic. And then I missed a pen that had an awesome color – something lime green, if I am remembering correctly. And so it began – I needed one of these pens. And when the Hooded Ranger popped up in that lovely purple, I snatched it up. I really like the balance of these as well, and the decision to pick up the Ghost and Frankenstein was EASY. So Easy. Look at these!
Ghost and Frankenstein, by Mad Science Pen Company.
Now for the rest of these! Check out thoughts below:
Frank, the Demonic Octopus: Sailor Professional Gear Slim, Manyo – Dianthus (MF) / Diamine Inkvent 2021- Nightshade – Yep, several pens inked that are the same model, BECAUSE I love it. Tada. I love this ink. It is blue, is it purple? Why not both!
Zombie: Esterbrook JR Picket Paradise – Key Lime (F) / Wearingeul Flowing Leaves – Continued from September. Love the pen performance. I did hit a clog or two, rinsed it and realized it had run out of ink the first time haha. Beautiful ink, shimmer comes thru great, fun shade.
Pumpkin Head: Kaweco AL Sport Limited Edition – Orange (F) / Troublemaker – Mango – This nib is still a little wonky, feels like I need to hold it at a low angle to get ink to flow. This ink is super shady – in a good way – and I love it, the dark pops thru in the shade.
Vampire: Monteverde Strata – Red (F) / Diamine 2021 Inkvent Vintage Copper – Sometimes ink does not flow great, but pulled from Sept, writing well enough. I love this ink, the end.
I enjoyed my palette this month. Fall is not my favorite season weather wise but the house I grew up in was always very very decorated for fall. Very decorated. So I guess now as an adult, I find a fall palette pleasing. I spent a lot of my growing up years in Maine, and the fall leaves there are literally a thing people will take a vacation to go see. Worth it.
I used a dusky blue, a darker green and a light green, three different shades of orange and two of an orangish and darkish yellow. I felt that this spread covered what I remember of the woods in the autumn, on long drives in Maine. I googled fall palettes, and found one that looked about right and then winnowed down until I had what I ended up using.
I got to try out a bunch of new inks and a couple of new pens. I made a couple of changes for the pens I started out using: 1. Sailor Pro Gear Slim – Purple Northern Lights (MF) / ColorVerse 54 Hayabusa Glistening – This is my Forever Purple pen, continues to perform admirably! 2. Sailor Pro Gear Slim Mini – Night Blue (MF) / ColorVerse Cat – This is my new Forever Blue pen, had a couple of issues with it sticking a little bit, but that seems to be something I am just going to have to deal with when using ColorVerse Cat. Sad pants. 3. Esterbrook JR Pocket Paradise – Blue Breeze ( F) / PenBBS Break – This blue ink is really perfect for a fall and I enjoyed writing with it, zero problems. Soothing, really. 4. Hong Dian 5019, Lan Tian – May Flowers (EF) / Ferris Wheel Press Moonlight Jade – My Magic Green pen, continues to be magic. 5. Esterbrook JR Picket Paradise – Key Lime (F) / Wearingeul Flowing Leaves – I already knew I liked this pen but I ended up really adoring this shade of green. And the shimmer behaves beautifully. 6. TWSBI Diamond 580 – Iris (F) / Kiwi Ink Quetzalcoatl – I do love my Diamond pens. And I’ve used Quetzalcoatl before and it was as lovely as I remember. Although, it’s supposed to be a sheen AND shimmer ink, but the shimmer never comes through on page. I have two theories – one is that the paper I am using just shows sheen better. The second is that sheen always trumps shimmer. I really need to experiment more with papers… 7. Beardbarian Woodworking – Copper Eclipse Sunset (F) / Ferris Wheel Press Candy Marsala – I really love this pen. Marsala came through lovely, and only got a little stuck once or twice, but resolved on it’s own. 8. Majohn Wancai Mini Fountain Pen – Transparent Clear (F) Monteverde Strata – Red (F) / Diamine 2021 Inkvent Vintage Copper – I switched pens purely because this Monteverde pen was a sparkly red and came in my monthly Truphae box. It writes okay, gets sticky sometimes. Vintage Copper is one of my very favorite inks, but fun fact – I accidentally put some Raspberry Rose back in here when I was emptying some pens about a year ago. It doesn’t seem to have changed the color of this sample bottle of Vintage Copper, but who knows. 9. Kaweco AL Sport – Gold (B)PenBBS 456 Fountain Pen – Autumn (F) / Kiwi Liquid Gold – I kept finding ink inside the lid and all over the nib even when the pen hadn’t been dropped, so when my new PenBBS showed up, I switched over. I still haven’t figured out vacuum pens, but that’s on me. I love the way both of my PenBBS pens look, and the writing on this one was mostly fine. The color variations and shimmer came thru nicer with the broad nib, but this wasn’t terrible. I think the times where it felt like the ink wasn’t flowing well was something to do with me not using the vacuum part correctly. I’ll figure it out eventually. 10. Esterbook JR Pocket Paradise Pocket Pen – Yellow (1.1m Stub) / ColorVerse Rising Reflections – This is the first time I have used a 1.1m Stub nib and I loved it! Shows off the ColorVerse Rising Reflections shimmer beautifully!
I am considering keeping Flowing Leaves and Vintage Copper for my “Monster” palette in October. I like how Flowing Leaves flows and decided it worked well for Zombie – and Vintage Copper looks good for Vampire.
I really want to figure out how vacuum pens work. Must science it. My favorite discovery of my palette this month was the 1.1 Stub nib – it’s so good! I wish I wrote larger when journaling, I only ended up using it for headings. It was odd not using any Kaweco’s. I count this palette as a success!
These are the pens and Captain Log I will be using for October!
Yeah, the theme for this month is definitely not hard to puzzle out – Halloween is in October, Monsters and Spoopy things are Halloween related, therefore! Yeah, it’s not hard. I actually ended up picking out the inks themselves and then relating them to “monsters” – although that word was definitely stretched to fit in several cases…
I concentrated on Purple, Greens, and Oranges, specifically in a saturated fashion. After a WHOLE MONTH with only my one usual Forever Purple in September, I was very excited to play with purples again! Which, ahem, has nothing to do with why I picked purples, I mean, purples are totally a Halloween color, right? Right.
I am using a lot of shimmer, and a lot of inks from my August Daily Samples – Wearingeul – and I am very excited. So, let’s take a look at what “spoopy monsters” I used to justify the colors I picked!
All 10 ink sample cards paired with 10 fountain pens.
(Also the two forever pens and the magic pen – but technically they are not part of this palette, so! I will not be including them in this list.)
I am very excited about the purple Wearingeul ink and the Vinta. Those look very promising in this dip test:
October Monster INK Palette – it should say! Since I used a metal dip pen to sample each one.
Howl at the Moon seemed like an ink that is to pale to use very much when I first sampled it back in December, but now I have started using stub nibs and I want to see how well the ink shows up from a broader nib! And I got the Troublemaker ink in the September Ink Flight and I fell instantly in love, so barely looked at other oranges when I was picking those out haha. Oh! And Frank, the Demonic Octopus is a reference to a creature my Game Master for a game of Dungeons and Dragons introduced, we fought, and my character – an ambulatory wheelchair using Wizard Librarian, who casts spells with a fountain pen and ink – got a bottle of demonic octopus ink. 🙂 Really I am excited about all of these inks, but thought calling out those specifics would be fun.
Twelve pens is a lot of pens but I am happy to report that I really used most of them. There were two with weird nibs, but after I tuned them they were okay. There was a yellow that was mostly too light for me to read, so ended up doing mostly accents with it. My header pen only saw use on headers because I was worried about running out of that ink – didn’t have a lot of them. I will say switching out that one orange ink was a very good idea.
I am now realizing how vague this is going, so let’s just list them all out instead!
Record of August pens and inks and FEELINGS
1. Hong Dian 5019, Lan Tian – May Flowers (EF) / Ferris Wheel Press Moonlight Jade – Magic Green Pen! I adore it. The end. (Refilled 9 times) 2. Sailor Pro Gear Slim Mini – Night Blue (MF) / ColorVerse Cat – New Forever Pen! Shall dub Forever Blue – pretty much identical experience to the Forever Purple pen, just a different favorite shimmer ink. – “Pen is JUST long enough, but still smol, which I love. Fav nib. Ink works, comes out nicely, hasn’t gummed yet, knock on wood. :)” (Refilled 3 times) 3. James White – Nebula (Custom Nib) / Ferris Wheel Press Tumbling Time Blue – Solid pen, didn’t use it a ton because low on ink. Ink good, dark tho, nice sheen, rarely any shimmer. 4. Sailor Pro Gear Slim – Purple Northern Lights (MF) / ColorVerse 54 Hayabusa Glistening – Forever Purple Pen! Also adore this one. The end. (Refilled 7 times *yay*) 5. Esterbrook JR Paradise Pocket Pen – Purple Passion (F) / Van Dieman Beetroot Relish – “Esterbrook F nib is a good size. I like the handling of the pen. I LOVE this ink color! Solid purple – and no shimmer! Performed great too.” (Refilled 1 time) 6. Bearbarian Woodworking – Copper Eclipse Sunset (F) / Diamine 2021 Inkvent Raspberry Rose – “I like the material of this pen a ton – the finger hold spot is a little slipper tho. Nib is a good size, performs well usually, slightly inconsistent. Really like the color of this ink, a magenta I like the depth of – performed well.” (Refilled 1 time) 7.Conklin – Coronet Orange (F) / Kyo Iro Moonlight of Higashiyama – “Inconsistent ink distro, sometimes really heavy flow, sometimes really dry. Love the nib shape tho. Fascinating ink color – glad I switched it out! (Leave uncapped, gets wetter, caped, gets dryer?)” (Refilled 2 times – exploded a little bit once, maybe because I dropped it) 8. Kaweco AL Sport Limited Edition – Orange (F) / Ferris Wheel Press Pumpkin Patch – “Nib/feed performance inconsistent…tried tuning it, seems to work better sometimes but then not others…I really like the subtle shading on this orange.” (Refilled 1 time) 9. Leonardo Officina Italiana Brooks PM4 Limited Edition – Supernova (F) / Diamine Inkvent 2021 Wonderland – Still love this ink. It ended up not really fitting in the palette – so when it ran out on the 20th, I just didn’t refill it. 10. Esterbook JR Pocket Paradise Pen – Orange (EF) / Diamine 2021 Inkvent Peach Punch – “This ink ended up being fine in this nib, but had a rough start. I love this ink color, a very interesting orangish that seems to be different shades depending on what’s next to it!” (Refilled 1 time) 11. Esterbook JR Pocket Paradise Pocket Pen – Yellow (EF) / Sailor Ink Studio 770 – “Nib scratchy, ink wouldn’t flow, tuned it (baby’s bottom?) and seems better. Ink very light, hard to read. A little disappointed in this ink 0 expected it to be darker consistently but you can see the difference. Readable now! Nib still a little scratchy.” 12. Majohn Wancai Mini Fountain Pen – Transparent Clear (F) / Diamine 2019 Inkvent Golden Star – “Fav part of pen is seeing the ink swirl around. Solid nib, I like the way it writes – can handle shimmer! I think the cap may have cracked – humidity in there now?? Love this ink color – literally changes shades as you write down a page!”
So, if I had to pick a favorite (besides my Forever Pens) it would have to be either the purple Esterbrook with Beetroot Relish in it, or the Majohn with Golden Star in it. For different reasons. Oo! Or the Beardbarian with Raspberry Rose. It was a good month!
Picking colors for my September pens and inks was a little difficult for me because the theme is “Fall” and fall colors have a lot of red in them and I do not like red. I resorted to google and ended up finding a really nice set of 5 colors – and I have no idea how to describe them professionally, but here we go! Sort of like a teal, evergreen-y type blue, a kind of muted moss green, a rust reddish, an orange that is like a yellow-orange and a yellow that is closer to an orange. Yep. Doing great.
Remember last month when I said I might keep my blue Sailor mini with Cat in it as part of my permanent pens? Well now we have the Forever Purple, Magic Green, and now a Forever Blue. Besides those three, I realized I was looking for colors really similar to my “sunset” theme, but the biggest difference for me was the colors for August were more vibrant and the ones for September are more muted. Insert something clever here about saturation? I am sure Aaron said something about saturation at some point and clearly that did not stay in my head.
I’ve got 10 pens this month and besides the three forever pens, none of the inks/pens are being carried over from August. That’s not because I didn’t like them, but they just didn’t end up working with the muted theme I was trying. And yes, I ended up with a kind of rainbow again and I refuse to be upset by this. I like rainbows.
10 pens in two columns, one purple, two blues, two greens on the left, 3 red/orange and 2 orange/yellows on the right
I picked up a 1.1m stub nib for one of my Esterbrook pens, and I am interested to see how it handles that shimmer ink. Yellows kind of need a broader application I think…who knows, I usually use fine nibs!
The Vintage Copper is going into one of those clear Majohn mini pens because I anticipate it being gorgeous like the one I was using in August. Twsbi diamond is one I usually enjoy, so looking forward to that, Kaweco is a known great – but a broad nib, so we shall see if I still like it. And I am reusing the Beardbarian pen because it is my favorite right now.
Because I am not wild about all of the colors individually or in pairs, I am going to try using them as a whole palette instead of singly. I have been using a different pair of pens every day of the week, to distinguish the days, to use the pens more regularly, and the pair instead of one so I could have an easier time navigating my notes. This month I will be seeing how annoying it is to switch out every pen for every new line item in my work notebooks instead, in an attempt to not grow to dislike a single color so much I stop using it. Granted, if that does happen – and it might – I can just switch out the ink and/or pen. Still, might be interesting.
Because of the ink swap last month immediately after putting that one orange in a pen and seeing how mushy it was, I decided this month to try the inks on my usual paper before getting them into pens.
Each line is a different ink color
You may notice the 3 reds in there that look very similar. Because of this, the new rule (for next month) is to dip test the inks before I decide on a palette, instead of just before I put them in a pen.
My theme for July was “Summer.” picked ink colors that reminded me of a pool, or a beach, or a beach ball. It is a very fun palette. I was able to match pens with inks pretty well, but I also started out with two wooden pens, which did not match (which is fine because they are soooo pretty). Over all I liked how this palette worked, although I did end up switching out one pen after the first week, because the nib needs some tweaking. There are several colors I would like to use again in the future, but first! The palette!
(Originally) Beardbarian Woodworking – Walnut Burl Anniversary (M?) / Robert Oster Envy (swapped this out because the nib was really hard to write with and the line was much thicker AND the ink was really sticky in the syringe I filled the converter with which made me nervous for the pen. So when I got the Esterbrook, I switched it out.)
(If there are no links it is because I could not find it, my apologies!)
I think my favorite in this set (besides my usual favorites like Forever Purple and Magic Green) were Wonderland in the Leonardo and Down the Down Valley in the Esterbrook. The Esterbrook matched the ink in it PERFECTLY which I was especially pleased by. The Wonderland ink is a very wet ink but it is really pretty, both the shine when it went down on paper and after it dried. Those blues are super pretty but the pens gave me some trouble. I was surprised at the Kaweco not feeding well, and I need to get a new nib for the two Beardbarian pens. Twsbi performed well as usual. And the Salior Pro Gear NOT Slim confirmed for me that I definitely prefer the Slim version haha. But it is pretty and the ink matched it really well. And the James White pen is a mesmerizingly pretty resin, and I really like the Mystic Mountain ink because it is so pretty when you can really get the shimmer out – there are a bunch of different color shimmers in that one ink – which I was able to do with that custom nib.
Overall this was a great palette. I liked all the pens and inks I ended up with by the end of the month. (And the one I had to swap out just needs a new nib, the pen itself is really well balanced and I enjoyed writing with it.) The colors contrasted really well with each other. And I had two of each shade – two purples, two blues, two greens, and I used the orange and pink as a pair which meant I could try out making my work notes more readable by alternating colors on bullet items and between meetings, and use a different pair each day (rainbows on Friday). It meant I got to use more of my pens every day, which I like, and it did make my notes more readable – which is awesome.
A successful palette, my favorite kind! It was the third month this year that was basically a rainbow, since April was a rainbow palette because birthday month, and June was a rainbow because Pride month, and then July which was basically only missing yellow. Which made me pause when I was originally picking my colors. Then I remembered rainbows make me happy and also these are my pens and my inks and my notebooks so all that matters is I am happy. And I was very happy with this palette.
Tada! Pens and inks. I usually only ink 7-9 pens but! I am experimenting with a new carry case AND. August is the one year anniversary of me getting into all this. So! I’m going a little extra this time…
My theme is sunset, I was trying to think of good colors for the last month of summer and it made me think of a day ending, as the summer ends, and then I thought of a sunset! The idea of a sunset made me really happy at the wealth of colors I could try out. So that’s what we’re doing!
(You may notice the two yellow inks are in different pens than the picture shows, my mistake! The list is correct, the photo is not. And also – Apologies – I can’t seem to find links for the Diamine Inkvent inks – they originally came out in an advent calendar in 2021 or 2019. The place I grabbed bottles no longer has them – seems to be a very limited run.)
Now, where am I going to put these 12 pens you may be asking! I technically have pen loops for 7 pens across my two main portfolios. I can squeeze in 2 more by putting a smaller pen – like a Kaweco – across the top of my weekly portfolio, and another one clipped into the card slots in my larger portfolio. So that gives me 7 in my main portfolio and 2 in my weekly. See why I usually try to stay under 9 pens? Haha.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered Galen Leather makes tiny little cases for Kaweco pens. I clearly needed one, since I have entirely too many Kawecos. Once I got it I figured out I could fit 3 small pens in it. Tada! Space for 12 pens.
Here’s the thing – If all 3 of my smaller pens are in the extra tiny case, then I don’t technically have a second spot in the weekly portfolio. Oh no…but! I also picked up a full size pen case at the same time as the tiny one – and I happen to be using three Esterbrook pens this month. So! I’ve got 3 Esterbook in a big pen external case, the Sailor Mini, Orange Kaweco, and the clear Majohn in the tiny external case, and the rest of the pens in my large portfolio. Yay! This should be fun.
Purple Portfolio from Galen Leather, all 12 pens, and a fresh purple notebook!
First Impressions! I got the pens inked this morning and I usually fill them with a syringe, so sometimes I need to do a little bit of manipulation to get them to write. Then of COURSE I have to test them…ahem. – Magic Green – writes as well as always! (Knock on wood). – Blue Sailor – gorgeous. I love the mini slim, and I love the MF nib!! And Cat is one of my favorite inks. Gorgeous all around. – Sparkle Stick – had a little bit of trouble trying to prime the feed on this one, so I rinsed it, and eventually got it to write, and this ink is going to be awesome in this custom nib. – Forever Purple – also writing wonderfully as usual! – Esterbrook Purple – very pleased, writes well, solid color. It’s a PURPLE without SHIMMER and I like it. How dare. – Custom Swirly – yeeees I was worried the nib in this one would be wonky, but no! Writes well out of the gate, and this is a fun ink to play with. – Conklin Orange – this ink is WEIRD. It had a weird consistency in the first place, and it feathers like bonkers on the page…I’m going to give it a couple of days but I might end up swapping this ink out. – Kaweco Orange – ink is struggling to flow. I need to check the nib and feed alignment, I’ll keep using it and see if I can’t loosen it up. I think I saw a post about this with like, a nick name, because this happens commonly? Haha. I’ll look for it. – SuperNova Wonderland – writing beautifully as it did all thru July! – Esterbook Orange – ugh. Would not write right away – unsure why, although it does have an EF nib – but no shimmer in the ink?? I let it sit for a while and it started to write, but it’s still struggling. I’ll let it sit for a longer time and see what happens. – Esterbook Yellow – same problem as the orange, so we’ll see how it does tomorrow maybe? – Clear Shiny Yellow – pen is so wee and tiny and cute!! I hope this nib can handle a shimmer ink… I put a shimmer ink in this because it is truly gorgeous… Check it out:
Keep in mind, this is all after a single use, testing the pens and inks for the first time. So much can change in a month! I will naturally complain on twitter, ahem, but I will also post a review type thing at the end of the month. It will be less in depth and more…Spoon’s weird opinions! Yay! Enjoy!
Oh look, the internet! Clearly this place wants to hear about the fountain pen stuff I’m all excited about. Right? Definitely. Here we go!
So I got into fountain pens last October (2021). Since then I have been keeping a set of pens inked, sampling new inks, and trying new pens. I’ll get into all that as I back track in future posts. Today I am going to wax eloquent about my current stage of fun.
I forget when I started this but I decided to stop carrying around 20 inked pens at a time, and started trying to keep to 7 at a time. Ish. This was after reading a post on the practicality of it and realizing that more than about 7 meant I just didn’t use all of the pens. Since pens can’t stay infinitely inked and still work well, it ended up being kind of a waste. Then I decided to swap them out monthly. THEN I started to pick themes for both the inks I used that month and the pens I put them in.
Which brings us to August. About half way thru the month before – so in this instance, right now, middle of July – I start looking at which inks and pens I’m going to use for the following month. I usually think of a theme a couple months before – for August I was planning on using a sunset palette. Fortunately I’ve been picking up orange pens lately – convenient eh?
I create a new sample card every time I pick up a new ink. Since I have been sampling a new ink daily for a couple of months, I have a decent library at this point. What I like to do when I am picking out my inks is I literally walk thru every single card for whatever colors I am looking for on the next palette. In this case I was looking for purples, magentas (I do NOT like pinks usually), oranges, and yellows. I pulled from this painting my husband and I have from one of our anniversaries:
Painting, Angela Ferrari
And yes, I pulled all of those colors – ALL of them. Every single purple, magenta, orange, and yellow I had in my sample card library. Wheeeee.
When I am first pulling these colors, I do it very loosely. Is it purple? Yep. Goes in the pile. Is it green? Yep. Put it back. I look for nuance after I’ve pulled all of my main colors. Like, a purple that is so dark it’s closer to a black. Or a yellow that is too faint to read easily. I put all of those back and then I do the next thing.
Piles of sample cards grouped by color.
Next I start to group them by color feel – there is more than one kind of purple for example. Some are more blue, some are more red. You get the idea. I like to do this because the same ink colors can show up across different manufacturer’s. Often you can get very similar colors but also they can end up having really subtle differences which is super fun! This is what I got from that step:
Purple sample cards, grouped by tone. Magenta sample cards, grouped by tone. Orange sample cards, grouped by tone. Yellow sample cards, grouped by tone. All of the sample cards piled, seen from the top down.
You should be able to see how similar the cards that are grouped together are, usually by tone or temperature or color or whatever you want to call it. They look similar. Moving on.
I REALLY like what I have come up with so far. But I need to keep narrowing it down, obviously. But rather than do that today, I’m actually going to sit with this stack for a bit. It’s got the range I think I like, it’s narrowed down to some good options – too many good options. And while I could make final decisions today, I don’t have to. Having this stack set aside, colors I can look through whenever I want to check something, colors I can visualize in my brain, I find this a very enjoyable experience. It’s part of the whole thing for me, being able to get to this step, and just think about it.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the things going on in the world right now are kind of the worst. So I like to put good things in my brain, so I can concentrate on that for a nice break.
I have also picked out the pens, or at least most of them. This can change depending on which ink colors I end up picking, or a new pen might come in that I want to try. Or a new ink comes in last minute. It can change a lot of things. These are the pens I picked out:
9 pens laid out in a row.
I typically keep 9 pens inked. I’ve been pretty consistent about that since I started using the 2 portfolios I keep my main notebooks in. There is intended space for 7 pens but I can get creative and fit in 2 more. This month I want to try using a tiny pen case for Kaweco pens – but I’ll only be putting 1 Kaweco in it, with 2 other tiny pens. Which means. Technically. Ahem. I could carry…12 inked pens. Just saying.
I have some favorite pen makers these days, although I am always keen to try new ones. And I very much love tiny pens. Husband and I both super like Kaweco AL Sport, for example. We have entirely too many of them, haha. Sailor has turned out to be another favorite – the MF nib is my favorite! I tend to like finer nibs, so I’ve stuck mostly to those so far. I do have a custom nib that does a very broad line but I can also write “upside down” with it and get a finer line – closer to a medium nib I think. I use that one for Headers when I am writing dates and notes. I have also used Twsbi a great deal – they were some of my first pens, and I continue to enjoy them. I try to experiment with new kinds of pens when I can, but I definitely have favorites. For example, I have been using the two tone green pen and the sparkly purple pen on the left side of the photo above for several months in a row!
In fact, this month I am trying out two pens that are fairly new to me. I did use an Esterbook for the first time in July, and I’ll be using a second one in August. The other new one I got on Amazon haha – a friend found it, it’s adorable and tiny, and completely clear. And it doesn’t take a converter or a cartridge – it’s called an eye drop pen. You fill it with a syringe, which I’ve started using lately. Looks like fun! Depending on how many pens I do end up inking, I may end up changing my line up, but this is what I am planning on so far.
And that’s it! I do this every month. There are many steps to this…process? Project? I don’t even know what to call this – it’s woven thru my day, become critical to my sense of calm, and something I continue to find solid joy in. Whatever it’s called – there are things I do a certain way, and I plan on talking about them here. So, if you’re into fountain pens and what not, enjoy!
There are entirely too many inks to list for this post, but I will list the ones I end up choosing in another post. Here is a list of the pens in that photo:
Hong Dian 5019, Lan Tian – May Flowers (EF)
Sailor Pro Gear Slim – Purple Northern Lights (MF)
Sailor Pro Gear Slim Mini – Night Blue (MF)
James White – Nebula (F)
Esterbrook JR Paradise Pocket Pen – Purple Passion (F)
Leonardo Officina Italiana Brooks PM4 – Supernova (F)
Conklin – Coronet Orange (F)
Kaweco AL Sport – Limited Edition Orange (F)
Majohn Wancai Mini – Transparent Clear (F)
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