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 
Dear Jane: Needless to say that this drawing is most interesting and definitely well executed. How you can manage doing such perfect work is beyond me who have not been gifted as you have. Surely, you had to have a model to do such perfect work. Don’t ever give up painting as you are GREAT – a magnificent artist. MOM >
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Thank you Mom — glad that you sem to like my even more insignificant ones -)))
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Hi Jane,
Thanks so much for this good information – you already helped me a lot in private email.
Such a cute little sketch. (From someone with 21st-century attention span, do you get impatient, drawing dozens & dozens of parallel lines? Or is it a meditative act?)
I know Platinum Carbon and De Atramentis Document (& Archive) are both nano-carbon (ie, pigment) inks. I wasn’t aware they were so different in consistency.
At least neither have the shellac (as do Indias & Chinas) that corrodes f.p. innards.
There’s another nano-carbon ink that Aussie ink&wash drawer Liz Steele swears by: SUPER5 Darmstadt. Like De Atramentis, it’s German. If you thought DeAtr’is is hard to get in Canada, forget about Super5.
I’m so glad I stumbled on your blog, and contacted you!
Cheers,
– Pete from Pointe-Claire
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Hello Peter, I totally forgot to mention that all of my fountain pens are used with an ink convertor as opposed to a cartridge… it is the only way that I can mix my own colours and I find that they are very flexible… asding dilution solution, etc. Well, Liz does live on the other side of the planet -))) and yes drawing for me is quite meditative…
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Yup, cartridges leave you limited for ink choices – especially if you want waterproof.
Funny name, though: ‘converter’: When I first looked into fountain pens, it wasn’t obvious to me what it signified – and what exactly a pen needed converting _from_. No one told this newbie that most f.p.s took ink cartridges. I would have renamed converters: ‘refillable ink reservoirs’, for clarity.
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I agree -)))
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Hi again,
I want to correct something that I said:
Liz Steele doesn’t ‘swear by’ Super5 waterproof inks, rather she tried a range of them, found them quick drying and permanent, and really liked a couple of the coloured ones. But I have the impression she still relies mostly on the De Atramentis Document.
http://www.lizsteel.com/super5-inks-first-impressions/
Somewhere else she said she thought the Super5 dried in the pen faster than DeAtr’.
Cheers!
– Pointe-Claire Pete
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Thank you for this information. You must have read my mind, after your last post about your new Falcon pen, I was wondering which ink you would use. Stay warm, -32 with windchill all day today in Calgary. Anxiously waiting for our warm up on the 1 st. Happy New Year.
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Happy anew Year to you too -))) In my post I forgot to mention that I use ink covertors and not ink cartridges as they are more flexible -)))
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