Sunday Reads: Doodles And Ink

A few that caught my eye this past week…

• Give your doodles dimension
• Pira Urosevic: Ink on Mylar #1, #2 and #3 (Gorgeous!)
• Robert Oster Viola Ink
• Wonder Pens: TWSBI ECO vs. 580 vs. 580 AL Comparison
• A Better Desk: Leuchtturm1917 Review

The Leuchtturm1917 Finds A Few Mates

The Leuchtturm1917 paper is so nice to write on that finding compatible inks and pens has become a quest. Every duo on hand whether for personal use or testing purposes gets a page to itself in the search for suitable matches. With a few exceptions, wide and flex nibs have caused dots of bleed through. There is some show through, but it isn’t a deterrent for me. At least in my journal, neither is the tiny degree of Moleskine-like feathering. How the pen moves across the paper is more important for private musings and the sheer joy of writing.

Best duos

• Lamy AL-Star EF with Noodler’s Black
• Conklin Duragraph Stub with Sailor Tokiwa-Matsu
• Levenger True Write F with Pelikan Violet
• Noodler’s Naponset with Iroshizuku yu-yake
• TWSBI 580 1.1 with Diamine Violet
• Platinum #3776 music nib with J. Herbin Terre de Feu or Cafe des Iles
• Vintage Platinum Karakusa 18k EF with Noodler’s El Lawrence
• Pilot Kakuno M with Diamine Mediterranean Blue

Most disappointing duos

• Platinum Nice M with Diamine Wild Strawberry
• Platinum Yamanaka SM with Diamine Merlot
• Pelikan M200 italic with Iroshizuku tsuki-yo
• Noodler’s 1820 Essex Konrad Flex with Noodler’s Dostoyevsky

The paper is absorbent so free-flowing inks produced the most bleed through. After testing more than twenty, this is now a predictable characteristic eliminating some inks from use in the Leuchtturm. No hardship since other inks work just fine.

However, the tendency to feather along a few of the fibers will be off-putting to some users.

A Pentel Pocket Brush Pen with J. Herbin Lie de The or Noodler’s Kiowa Pecan showed no feathering or bleed through. Good mates for this journal are to be found.

What continues to surprise is the way in which the paper handles light watercolor washes. There is very little buckling though with some colors I had to work at getting enough paint down. The paper held up well considering the abuse. No bleed through, but watercolor is more dense than ink. With more coarsely grained pigment particles and less water than ink, paint dries on the surface. It isn’t as translucent as ink, but for a hit of color or some doodles in margins, watercolor will do the trick.

This might seem like heresy, but the Leuchtturm1917 journal provides a wonderfully soft surface for my Autopoint mechanical pencil with HB lead. Should the need arise, a FACTIS extra soft eraser will leave the paper’s surface intact. It can even be used gently on art paper.

The deal here is that I love the paper and needed to persist to find good mates for it. Hey, persistence is a positive trait, isn’t it?

 

Platinum Nibs, Diamine And Leuchtturm1917

Last night two Platinum Century pens shouted for attention following weeks of being on the back bench. How could I refuse?

The good news is that the nibs wrote beautifully from the first stroke despite a lack of recent exercise. The Century certainly can go a long time without attention. Both are smooth, but there is a slight difference between the medium and the soft medium. The latter has a cushioned feel to it which reduces feedback. The line width of the soft medium might be a tad more narrow, but that could be attributed to the ink. Both nibs are in the workhorse category. Use them for anything.

Next to Noodler’s and J. Herbin, Diamine is the brand of ink that got the most time in my pens last year. Wild Strawberry and Merlot were gifts from Beth Treadway and have proven good additions to my regular rotation. Merlot dries more slowly, but for the saturated color, I can be patient.

The Leuchtturm1917 remains one of my favorite journals though it could be better. If you look closely, the inks found threads to follow and produced more bleed-through than I would like. The previous night I used a Platinum #3776 music nib with J. Herbin Cafe des Iles that produced neither feathering nor bleeding. Pelikan Violet, Waterman Florida Blue, and Noodler’s Apache Sunset performed better on the paper than any ink except Noodler’s Black.

Does this mean Diamine inks have a problem or is the Leuchtturm paper inconsistent? Either way it’s a reminder that testing ink is valuable. The last page in a notebook is a convenient place to write the names of pens and inks for future reference. My sample page produced mixed results, but I now know which duos would be best to grab for a long day of note taking.

The Platinum Century M and SM are delightful to use and I love the soft Leuchtturm paper even with its imperfections so I want to pair the paper with inks that will not feather or bleed. Noodler’s Black and Lexington Gray might just do the trick. Not colorful, but oh so reliable. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Leuchtturm1917 Ink And Watercolor Tests

Pen friends are great! One of mine sent a Leuchtturm1917 Squared Notebook that she thought I might enjoy. She was right. The soft surface of the paper is kind to nibs as well as my hand. The pale gray grid on ivory paper is even easy on the eyes. All to the good. However, a reader mentioned that he was having trouble with bleeding so I put my dozen ink rotation to the test.

Four of the twelve inks bled and showed slightly stronger marks than the photo. Iroshizuku tsuki-yo and Diamine Merlot left dots behind on almost every paper and remained true to form here. Great colors, but disappointing performance except with the finest of nibs. Earlier in the year, I wrote pages with Sailor Tokiwa-Matsu, Pelikan Violet and Iroshizuku yu-yake without bleeding. In order to use both sides of the paper, I have to be a bit selective with using free-flowing ink in a wide nib. Not a big deal since I love the paper’s texture and the size of the notebook.

The mild Moleskine-like feathering is only visible on close inspection and is not a deterrent for my purposes. The show-through was not offensive and in line with the 80gsm paper.

The surprise was that a light wash of watercolor did not exhibit any feathering or bleeding and so little buckling that the reverse can be written on with a fountain pen. That last is impressive and very convenient for my tendency to write about all kinds of things in my journal.

The form factor, paper texture, grid size and color, make the Leuchtturm1917 Squared Notebook a worthy contender for your affection. It may not be perfect, but it’s good enough for me.

 

A Boatload of Paper

Late last week I received a box of paper products from a friend who shares my paper hoarding affliction. You know the symptoms. Buy tons of paper retail, on sale, discounted, whatever, but often in quantity with hopes one product will be so ideal for fountain pen ink that you experience a state of bliss whenever you see, touch or put a pen to it. Not sure if that is over the top or dead-on, but if it sounds familiar, you are in good company.

Here is the dilemma I faced over the weekend.

Where to begin with so many choices? I finally gave myself a nudge and removed one plastic wrapper. But that’s as far as I got. The journals just looked too perfect to abuse with scribbles and such.

However, reviews take hands-on experience. So after the wrappers are removed, pen and ink tests will follow for writing paper and watercolor tests for the art paper. Call it initiation. Those that pass, join the hoard. Those that don’t, land in the giveaway box. On occasion, a format doesn’t thrill me, so even good paper can get tossed. It’s a simple system even though my collection seems to expand no matter what I do.

But isn’t that a good thing?