Well it is -21 celsius at the moment here and warmer than yesterday as it reached -27C last night… The cars are having trouble starting too, can you imagine? We went for a very small walk this morning and Pyper our Golden Retriever was glad to get back home… a first for him that is sure. This weather is perfect for an informative and long post!
A bit on inks on this cold day. There is a big difference when deciding to buy inks for writing or drawing with a fountain pen. I mostly draw with fountain pens, some inexpensive such as the Platinum Carbon and some expensive ones too such as my newly acquired Pilot Falcon SEF fountain pen.
I need to use a good quality inks that are waterproof as I like finishing up my drawings with watercolours… thus with water. If I use non waterproof inks, the inks will bleed and sometimes that effect is what I want, as you can see in this post. However I prefer to have my lines retain their solidity, so I like using waterproof inks. In Canada not many companies seem to carry the good quality fountain pen inks that are waterproof so I usually buy my inks at Jetpens.com or Gouletpens.com. Both are good reliable companies. When I first started with fountain pens I used to buy Noodlers’ bulletproof inks and the term bulletproof means waterproof… and there is a very informative page on Jetpens.com that talk about the differences in Noodler’s inks. THEN I tried De Atramentis Document Inks and ooooh lala — fell in love with this ink immediately. This ink glides and does not clog my pens and you can mix these inks together to make your own custom-made colours. I am waiting for a De Atramentis Document Brown to arrive so that I can mix it up with my Document Blue which will give me a dazzling grey colour. If you wish to peruse a very good blog on this matter, check Jane Blundell’s blog right here. I also buy a “dilution” bottle that De Atramentis sells via Gouletpens.com and I add a few drops of the dilution into my ink just in case. It keeps the ink very smooth running, albeit a bit longer to dry.
Totally forgot to mention about ink converters so my next blog will talk about that.
Paper: Moleskine Sketchbook 5″x8″
Fountain Pen: Pilot Falcon SEF
Ink: De Atramentis Document Black + Dilution 10 drops
Location: Rigaud, Québec, Canada
Painting to see : Peindre pour voir 