My current heartthrob is a Moonman C4, Japanese eyedropper with a Naginata nib. The main thing is the nib, but I love clear pens. Its taking a moment to get used to occasionally refilling the baby reservoir, but I think it will ultimately take care of problem of burping ink with your normal eyedroppers. That said, the main thing is the naginata nib which gives a great variety of thicknesses. I love variable nibs like Fudes and Parallels, but this is usable for writing as well, which makes it winner for everyday carry.
Had to google that pen because I’ve never heard of it before. It looks pretty neat! And now I am super curious about all the marks that the naginata nib can make.
I just shared a post on Note for you showing the range of strokes. You can totally try one out for pretty cheap on Aliexpress. I just bought one of their Lamy knockoffs with Naginata nib for around $6 ...then I bought a #6 nib to go into the C4. Cheers!
I love writing with a fountain pen but tend to draw with a dip pen or quill as I keep clogging fountain nibs up with waterproof ink and drawing debris!
They do tend to get clogged up if you fill it with waterproof ink and then don’t use it. I have one that I have had to let stand in water for a day because I didn’t use it for a couple of months.
I’ve also heard of people who didn’t use ink specially made for fountain pens but filled it with indian or acrylic ink, which will completely ruin the poor pen. And there’s no getting around drawing debris - in that case I’m with you in using something else. I’ve heard of people using kebab sticks - still want to try that. Or maybe a sushi stick?!
My absolute favourite is a huge swan feather quill that my daughter fished out of a river one day for me - it makes the most delicious marks and the fat quill holds loads of ink too!
Truly lovely illustrations - I still have my first ever fountain pen. It must be at least 15 years old, but still gives a wonderful weight of ink flow. My Parker fountain pen is always on my desk. I love to write and draw with it as well! A true multitasker!
I agree, they are great multitaskers. I love how one can subtly change the line weight just by changing the angle or pressing a bit harder. It gives that extra dimension to a drawing.
Such great multitaskers, and I feel like they're still a bit of a secret. As in, no one expects them to be so diverse in their uses! Parker do such a lovely ink called 'Quink' and the blue is sublime! Even to paint with, it has so many wonderful shades in it. Fully recommend if you can find some!
I purchased a Lamy safari a couple of years ago and just wasn’t ready for it because I really didn’t like it. This Christmas I was given a new Lamy safari with an extra fine tip, this time I feel more ready except for the actually beginning to sketch with it. That is still a little scary.
Although I originally bought my Lamy’s with the idea of drawing with them, I ended up using them mostly for writing, (which I prefer because I don’t have to press hard like with some “instant” pens) and I like the Fude nib and markers for drawing. But I can understand it being a bit scary at first to draw straight on with a pen - my tip for that is to find a cheaper sketchbook to take the pressure off and don’t expect too much from yourself in the beginning.
Thank you for the fountain pen info. I have used fountain pens for too long to remember. I loved & used them as a student & teacher of English because I love the ink flow as you do & penmanship just looked so much better using a fountain pen!
Upon retirement I decided to try art classes & discovered that fountain pens are used as sketching tools. I invested in LAMY & Fude based on recommendations from real artists I followed online. I still struggle with my ink drying out & am anxious to watch your video as I am having problems with one of my converters!
LOVED your sketches! Thx 4 sharing! I hope to do that soon.
I use the same for all of them. It gets a bit tricky when the ink pot gets too empty, but then I just use a pipet. (Might get a bit more messy.) Or you can pour the ink into a smaller container and pull it up from there.
I was gifted a gorgeous Conklin fountain pen and i just cant get the ink to flow out of it. It is my first one, as I usually use a dip pen … so please…any and all advice would be great! Happy Thursday ya’!!!
My first tip would be to make sure that you are using ink that are specifically made for fountain pens, any other inks (i.e. indian ink) will just clog up your pen. Apart from that a good soak + cleaning with thinner for document inks might help.
I am new to the fountain pen game, as being a left-hander, I always wrote them off as an impossibility. However, I came across another South-pawed Substacker who convinced me it was possible. Now I have a small collection of Lamy pens, and I even ended up buying Lamy Safaris and matching Pilot Iroshizuku inks as Xmas gifts for my family this year.
No, I did not need to change how I hold my pen. I am an 'over-writer,' so my pinky drags across the paper between four to six lines up the page. I find the inky has dried by then. As far as I know, the only people who may need to change how they write would be left-handed 'side-writers,' as their pinkies drag across the fresh ink immediately.
'Over-writers' can see the text they have just written until their wrist passes over it.
'Side-writers' can only see the last two or three letters before they are hidden behind their gripping fingers.
'Under-writers' should be able to see everything they write, as long as they write left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
That said, the finer the nib, the more picky it may be about the angle of attack on the page. I have one Lamy LH (left-hand) nib, and I love it. However, the LH nibs seem to only come in the M size, and I prefer F. This is not a deal-breaker. I love each of my Lamy pens; regardless of the nib type, they all work for me.
This is so interesting! Thanks for the detailed comment. I have a left handed son who will start to learn how to write within the next year or so, so I am definitely going to keep this in mind. And I didn’t that you could get a LH nib, that is so cool and helpful.
I love my fountain pens! My collection looks similar to yours, with multiple Lamy Safaris (including, in my case, one with a left-handed nib), and green and blue Sailor Fude nib pens. My pride and joy is a pen made by a rather obscure US based company called Edison. It writes so smoothly.
One question, what is the grey-blue ink you refer to in your post? Thanks!
I do love a fountain pen and I admit I have a lot of them and I get a lot of use out of all of them.
I love that the Lamy Safari’s come in different nib sizes, bold, medium, fine and extra fine nibs and the nibs are also replaceable.
Sailor fude in both the green long and the shorter blue barrel are great too and feel so nice to use and add so much expression to lines.
If a person likes to use cartridge ink the green one can hold a spare cartridge in the barrel.
My all time favorite ink is Platinum Carbon Ink in black. The bottle has a reservoir so you turn it over and it fills ink into the reservoir and it’s easy to dip your nib in and pull the ink up with the converter without a mess.
For color I love Roher and Klinger fountain pen ink and they have a nice set of three inks, a deep purple, a green and a golden yellow.
DeArtemis document ink in Urban Grey and Fog Grey which is a beautiful blue color, are versatile as well as their color brown instead of using black ink.
For those inks I use a syringe to put ink in a small shot glass and then dip the nib in and pull the ink up with the convertor.
A couple of interesting fude pens are the Lanxivi Duke 551 Confucius and the Jinhao 159 Fountain pen bent nib. They’re wide heavier barreled pens that flow ink like crazy, in a good way.
I can hear from your comment that you love your fountain pens. So many tips in here! Thank you for them!
I also like to sometimes exchange my Lami Safari nib sizes, depending on the ink I use - some colours ink just ask for a thicker or thinner nib.
So good to hear that the green Sailor can hold a spare cartridge. That will be so useful when traveling, because taking a pot of ink isn’t always handy, especially on a plane.
The shot glass trick is so nice! Another thing to remember for when my ink pots get low on ink.
That’s also my favourite sketching fountain pen combo. I’ve been sketching mostly with my blue grey ink in my fude nib pen, but recently I have been considering also having a black ink one. Do you have a favourite colour waterproof ink that you like to use?
I use De Atramentis Document Black. I also have their fuchsia, cyan, and yellow so I can mix my own colors. I also have the De Atramentis dilution liquid and have made a gray to draw out my bullet journal spreads
Having the three primary colours ink is absolutely genius! I mix my paints that way, why have I never thought of mixing my own fountain pen ink colours. You have me really excited about the possibilities right now!
It's super fun to mix my own ink colors. I've also been experimenting with adding mica or shimmer potion in my FP inks for writing. I don't use shimmer inks for drawing but maybe I should start
Timely conversations! Just bought myself a pink Lamy Safari and turquoise ink (this combination makes me so happy) for my 100 Day Project sketches. So interesting to see how you refill your converter, I have always dipped the nib in the ink to refill instead of taking it apart - is that completely wrong or risky?
Yes, some people do it that way. I just don’t like it when my nib gets too full of ink, and when I do it that way I tend to get the ink all over the coloured bit where you hold it too 🙈 If the ink bottle gets too empty I’ll use a pipet to get the last bit of ink out and the put that into the converter. This is harder though because you need quite a thin pipet.
When I was in 8th grade (12 or 13 yrs old) my dad gave me a very nice fountain pen. I was at school and couldn’t get the cap off. Then my teacher stuck it in her mouth to try and remove the cap. I had her teeth prints on it forever after. I grew up poor and didn’t appreciate seeing those marks.
I’m with you on that one, I too like people’s drawings of their stationary/art supplies, be it their pens, tubes of paint or brushes. They are fun to draw too.
Lovely pen drawings, Nino. I also like ink pens which is strange after the trauma of learning to write with one. Age 7, a left hander being forced to use the right hand - smudges, splots and tears. I'm still a leftie and have 4 fountain pens including my grandfather's Parker. I can't use a fude nib though!
I can just imagine! We have a lot of lefties in our family and both my father and father-in-law were forced to learn how to write with their right hands. My father-in-law ended up being able to write with both hands at the same time. I am so glad that people are no longer being forced to learn how to write with their non-dominant hands. (Well at least in my part of the world.
When it comes to my fude nib pen, I mostly use it for drawing and very rarely write with it, unless I want the words to look wonky on purpose.
You might enjoy using twsbi too. They have overtaken the others to become my favourites. Twsbi eco in particular
I often hear about the Twsbi. Now you have me really curious to try one out.
And thanks to your thread I now have naginata on my list :))
This comment thread has so many cool fountain pen tips, right?!
My current heartthrob is a Moonman C4, Japanese eyedropper with a Naginata nib. The main thing is the nib, but I love clear pens. Its taking a moment to get used to occasionally refilling the baby reservoir, but I think it will ultimately take care of problem of burping ink with your normal eyedroppers. That said, the main thing is the naginata nib which gives a great variety of thicknesses. I love variable nibs like Fudes and Parallels, but this is usable for writing as well, which makes it winner for everyday carry.
Had to google that pen because I’ve never heard of it before. It looks pretty neat! And now I am super curious about all the marks that the naginata nib can make.
I just shared a post on Note for you showing the range of strokes. You can totally try one out for pretty cheap on Aliexpress. I just bought one of their Lamy knockoffs with Naginata nib for around $6 ...then I bought a #6 nib to go into the C4. Cheers!
Saw the note. Nice range of strokes!
I love writing with a fountain pen but tend to draw with a dip pen or quill as I keep clogging fountain nibs up with waterproof ink and drawing debris!
They do tend to get clogged up if you fill it with waterproof ink and then don’t use it. I have one that I have had to let stand in water for a day because I didn’t use it for a couple of months.
I’ve also heard of people who didn’t use ink specially made for fountain pens but filled it with indian or acrylic ink, which will completely ruin the poor pen. And there’s no getting around drawing debris - in that case I’m with you in using something else. I’ve heard of people using kebab sticks - still want to try that. Or maybe a sushi stick?!
My absolute favourite is a huge swan feather quill that my daughter fished out of a river one day for me - it makes the most delicious marks and the fat quill holds loads of ink too!
Oh wow! How special! It’s that extra bit of story behind the drawings you make with it. I love stories like that.
Truly lovely illustrations - I still have my first ever fountain pen. It must be at least 15 years old, but still gives a wonderful weight of ink flow. My Parker fountain pen is always on my desk. I love to write and draw with it as well! A true multitasker!
Thank you Abby!
I agree, they are great multitaskers. I love how one can subtly change the line weight just by changing the angle or pressing a bit harder. It gives that extra dimension to a drawing.
Such great multitaskers, and I feel like they're still a bit of a secret. As in, no one expects them to be so diverse in their uses! Parker do such a lovely ink called 'Quink' and the blue is sublime! Even to paint with, it has so many wonderful shades in it. Fully recommend if you can find some!
Ooh, I’ve heard of Quink before. I definitely need to give it a try.
Oh definitely do! Black or blue, either are really lovely! But the blue is a personal favourite!
Mmm, I’m already fond of blue…
Thank you for sharing! I too, am forever in search of a great fountain pen.
I guess you can hear/see that I am a big fan of mine. Hope that you too can find that one that makes your heart sing and ideas pop into your head.
I purchased a Lamy safari a couple of years ago and just wasn’t ready for it because I really didn’t like it. This Christmas I was given a new Lamy safari with an extra fine tip, this time I feel more ready except for the actually beginning to sketch with it. That is still a little scary.
Although I originally bought my Lamy’s with the idea of drawing with them, I ended up using them mostly for writing, (which I prefer because I don’t have to press hard like with some “instant” pens) and I like the Fude nib and markers for drawing. But I can understand it being a bit scary at first to draw straight on with a pen - my tip for that is to find a cheaper sketchbook to take the pressure off and don’t expect too much from yourself in the beginning.
Loved your tip on using a window frame to enclose a panoramic sketch—I definitely will try that!!!♥️
Thank you for the fountain pen info. I have used fountain pens for too long to remember. I loved & used them as a student & teacher of English because I love the ink flow as you do & penmanship just looked so much better using a fountain pen!
Upon retirement I decided to try art classes & discovered that fountain pens are used as sketching tools. I invested in LAMY & Fude based on recommendations from real artists I followed online. I still struggle with my ink drying out & am anxious to watch your video as I am having problems with one of my converters!
LOVED your sketches! Thx 4 sharing! I hope to do that soon.
Thank you for reading, Marlene! I hope the video helped a bit with the converter problem.
Just a quick question: Do you use the same process for all your fountain pens with converters or only with the Sailor Fude
I use the same for all of them. It gets a bit tricky when the ink pot gets too empty, but then I just use a pipet. (Might get a bit more messy.) Or you can pour the ink into a smaller container and pull it up from there.
I was gifted a gorgeous Conklin fountain pen and i just cant get the ink to flow out of it. It is my first one, as I usually use a dip pen … so please…any and all advice would be great! Happy Thursday ya’!!!
My first tip would be to make sure that you are using ink that are specifically made for fountain pens, any other inks (i.e. indian ink) will just clog up your pen. Apart from that a good soak + cleaning with thinner for document inks might help.
Ok wonderful…thank you so much!
Hope it helps!
I am new to the fountain pen game, as being a left-hander, I always wrote them off as an impossibility. However, I came across another South-pawed Substacker who convinced me it was possible. Now I have a small collection of Lamy pens, and I even ended up buying Lamy Safaris and matching Pilot Iroshizuku inks as Xmas gifts for my family this year.
I’m curious - did you have to change the way you hold your pen?
And Lamy Safaris makes such a perfect gifts. I’m definitely going to remember that for next time I’m stuck.
No, I did not need to change how I hold my pen. I am an 'over-writer,' so my pinky drags across the paper between four to six lines up the page. I find the inky has dried by then. As far as I know, the only people who may need to change how they write would be left-handed 'side-writers,' as their pinkies drag across the fresh ink immediately.
'Over-writers' can see the text they have just written until their wrist passes over it.
'Side-writers' can only see the last two or three letters before they are hidden behind their gripping fingers.
'Under-writers' should be able to see everything they write, as long as they write left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
That said, the finer the nib, the more picky it may be about the angle of attack on the page. I have one Lamy LH (left-hand) nib, and I love it. However, the LH nibs seem to only come in the M size, and I prefer F. This is not a deal-breaker. I love each of my Lamy pens; regardless of the nib type, they all work for me.
This is so interesting! Thanks for the detailed comment. I have a left handed son who will start to learn how to write within the next year or so, so I am definitely going to keep this in mind. And I didn’t that you could get a LH nib, that is so cool and helpful.
Great post and wonderful illustrations.
I love my fountain pens! My collection looks similar to yours, with multiple Lamy Safaris (including, in my case, one with a left-handed nib), and green and blue Sailor Fude nib pens. My pride and joy is a pen made by a rather obscure US based company called Edison. It writes so smoothly.
One question, what is the grey-blue ink you refer to in your post? Thanks!
It’s De Atramentis’s Blue Grey document ink.
I saw that Edison fountain pen logo at one of our local shops, now you have me curious about it 😀
I do love a fountain pen and I admit I have a lot of them and I get a lot of use out of all of them.
I love that the Lamy Safari’s come in different nib sizes, bold, medium, fine and extra fine nibs and the nibs are also replaceable.
Sailor fude in both the green long and the shorter blue barrel are great too and feel so nice to use and add so much expression to lines.
If a person likes to use cartridge ink the green one can hold a spare cartridge in the barrel.
My all time favorite ink is Platinum Carbon Ink in black. The bottle has a reservoir so you turn it over and it fills ink into the reservoir and it’s easy to dip your nib in and pull the ink up with the converter without a mess.
For color I love Roher and Klinger fountain pen ink and they have a nice set of three inks, a deep purple, a green and a golden yellow.
DeArtemis document ink in Urban Grey and Fog Grey which is a beautiful blue color, are versatile as well as their color brown instead of using black ink.
For those inks I use a syringe to put ink in a small shot glass and then dip the nib in and pull the ink up with the convertor.
A couple of interesting fude pens are the Lanxivi Duke 551 Confucius and the Jinhao 159 Fountain pen bent nib. They’re wide heavier barreled pens that flow ink like crazy, in a good way.
I can hear from your comment that you love your fountain pens. So many tips in here! Thank you for them!
I also like to sometimes exchange my Lami Safari nib sizes, depending on the ink I use - some colours ink just ask for a thicker or thinner nib.
So good to hear that the green Sailor can hold a spare cartridge. That will be so useful when traveling, because taking a pot of ink isn’t always handy, especially on a plane.
The shot glass trick is so nice! Another thing to remember for when my ink pots get low on ink.
I love sketching with fountain pens! I use one with a fude nib filled with waterproof ink
That’s also my favourite sketching fountain pen combo. I’ve been sketching mostly with my blue grey ink in my fude nib pen, but recently I have been considering also having a black ink one. Do you have a favourite colour waterproof ink that you like to use?
I use De Atramentis Document Black. I also have their fuchsia, cyan, and yellow so I can mix my own colors. I also have the De Atramentis dilution liquid and have made a gray to draw out my bullet journal spreads
Having the three primary colours ink is absolutely genius! I mix my paints that way, why have I never thought of mixing my own fountain pen ink colours. You have me really excited about the possibilities right now!
It's super fun to mix my own ink colors. I've also been experimenting with adding mica or shimmer potion in my FP inks for writing. I don't use shimmer inks for drawing but maybe I should start
Timely conversations! Just bought myself a pink Lamy Safari and turquoise ink (this combination makes me so happy) for my 100 Day Project sketches. So interesting to see how you refill your converter, I have always dipped the nib in the ink to refill instead of taking it apart - is that completely wrong or risky?
And that colour combo with the pink and turquoise sounds so yummy - like summer with ice cream on the beach.
Yes, some people do it that way. I just don’t like it when my nib gets too full of ink, and when I do it that way I tend to get the ink all over the coloured bit where you hold it too 🙈 If the ink bottle gets too empty I’ll use a pipet to get the last bit of ink out and the put that into the converter. This is harder though because you need quite a thin pipet.
Yes, I always have to do a bit of a clean up, will try your way on my next refill, thanks for sharing your tips 😊
When I was in 8th grade (12 or 13 yrs old) my dad gave me a very nice fountain pen. I was at school and couldn’t get the cap off. Then my teacher stuck it in her mouth to try and remove the cap. I had her teeth prints on it forever after. I grew up poor and didn’t appreciate seeing those marks.
I can just imagine. It’s not nice having someone else’s teeth marks on your pen.
I do everything with fountain pen! I always love seeing people’s drawings of their pens, too. Lovely.
I’m with you on that one, I too like people’s drawings of their stationary/art supplies, be it their pens, tubes of paint or brushes. They are fun to draw too.
Lovely pen drawings, Nino. I also like ink pens which is strange after the trauma of learning to write with one. Age 7, a left hander being forced to use the right hand - smudges, splots and tears. I'm still a leftie and have 4 fountain pens including my grandfather's Parker. I can't use a fude nib though!
I can just imagine! We have a lot of lefties in our family and both my father and father-in-law were forced to learn how to write with their right hands. My father-in-law ended up being able to write with both hands at the same time. I am so glad that people are no longer being forced to learn how to write with their non-dominant hands. (Well at least in my part of the world.
When it comes to my fude nib pen, I mostly use it for drawing and very rarely write with it, unless I want the words to look wonky on purpose.