The Well-Appointed Desk

Colored Pencil Review: Pilot Frixion – Standard and Adult

Review by Tina Koyama

I’ve been curious about Pilot Frixion erasable products ever since Ana reviewed the pens and markers and the “color-pencil-like pens” several years ago. But it wasn’t until Pilot came out with actual erasable colored pencils (as opposed to gel pens that are called “color-pencil-like” but are not, in fact, color-pencil-like at all) that I became curious enough to try some.

Pilot now offers two lines of Frixion colored pencils: the standard line of 12 colors (set of 12 for $13.25; $2.05 each), which I’m going to call the kids’ line, and the new adult line (set of 12 for $22 or 24 for $44; $3.05 each) available in 24 colors. I got a set of 12 of each, which I’m going to review simultaneously. Pencils in both lines are available open stock – a useful feature for any colored pencil and unusual for sets marketed to kids – so kudos to Pilot for that.

The kids’ set comes in a plastic box in your choice of pink or blue. The woodcased barrels are color-matched to the cores. The attached erasers are translucent white.

The adult set comes in a dark blue metal box and includes a small coloring book. The pencils’ dark blue barrel has a textured herringbone pattern. Attached erasers that match the core colors are a nice touch, especially since they are the only color identifiers (other than the pencil points).

I love these translucent colored erasers – they remind me of gummy bears and look like they should be scented (but thankfully, they are not).

Frankly, I think the colored erasers are the main reason to get the adult set instead of the kids’ set, because the cores are identical (more on that in a moment). And speaking of those cores, I’m going to give you a closer look. Both the kids’ pencils and the adult pencils show an odd whitish core surrounding the colored core. The wood is high-quality, the cores are well-centered, and they all sharpen well.

Since the price of the adult pencils is substantially higher than the kids’ pencils, I wondered if the cores contained more pigment or if they were different in any other way. They are not – at all. Shown below is a swatch comparison of the two sets. On each swatch, I tested erasing quality with two erasers – the one attached (the right erasure) and a Tombow Mono Zero (the left erasure). In every case, the attached Frixion eraser erased more quickly, cleanly (no dust) and completely than the Tombow.

I was disappointed that the swatches came out looking pale and wimpy with the two layers I typically make for swatches, so I hoped they might be a bit more vibrant in a sketch. Alas, not much. I applied multiple layers of the relatively soft, waxy cores, but the pencils don’t have enough pigment to achieve the degree of vibrancy I’m used to seeing even in low-cost, student-grade pencils. (Sketch and swatches made in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook.) If I were looking for colored pencils to color with, Frixion would not be my first choice (nor my second or third choice). The hues are transparent, however, so they might work well as highlighter pencils.

Here’s where I’ll insert my confession: I didn’t get Frixion pencils to sketch with! According to JetPens’ product information, “FriXion pencil lead is a thermosensitive lead that can be erased by rubbing. Interestingly, erased color reappears at temperatures below 14° F (-10° C). A freezer is cold enough to make this happen.” After making the apple sketch, my inner Ms. Wizard was eager to stop coloring and get to the science experiments! I’m sure there are tons of YouTubes out there showing how Frixion erasing technology works, but I didn’t search for them – I wanted my own research to be pure and without influence.

First I scribbled a few swatches with the adult pencils on a Col-o-Ring card and erased lines through them with the attached eraser.

I tossed the card into the freezer for five minutes; the results show some erased areas coming back.

After removing the card from the freezer, I rushed to the bathroom and blew high heat from a hair dryer onto it. In a matter of seconds, the swatches had nearly disappeared.

I let the card sit at room temperature for about five minutes, and some of the swatches started returning.

Finally, I put the card back in the freezer for five minutes. Most swatches had nearly returned, including the lines I had initially erased.

At this point, my inner Ms. Wizard was satisfied that the Frixion pencils respond quickly to heat and cold. If you care about your writing maintaining legibility or your coloring remaining intact, heed the temperature of your paper.

Then my inner 8-year-old took over. Why fuss with invisible ink made of lemon juice if you can use Frixion pencils instead? I wrote a secret message . . .

. . . and erased it completely.

Assuming the message is delivered without being intercepted by enemy hands, the recipient would place the note in the freezer. In about a minute, the message would reappear enough to be legible. So much easier than lighting a candle!

Final Impressions

As coloring pencils, forget it – nearly every colored pencil on the market is better than Pilot Frixion. But for the sheer fun of exchanging invisible secret messages? Priceless.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

In Art of the Day

Eye Candy: Pelikan M205 Star Ruby

AnaApril 4, 2019June 11, 2020Leave a comment

This is a big week here at The Well-Appointed Desk. Pelikan released their ink color of the year: Star Ruby. While we are rolling around in inky goodness, we thought we’d share some of the color goodness with you.

Star Ruby is a deep magenta red color. You made be thinking to yourself, “Didn’t Pelikan already release a magenta color in their limited edition inks?” You would be right to think that. In 2012, Pelikan released the first “Color of the Year” which was Tourmaline. It was a slightly deeper, purply magenta.

That said, Star Ruby has clearly noticeable sheen. The color, when applied in a wider swath, has a velvety quality and a golden sheen.

Compared with other magenta pinks, there are a lot of similar colors. From top left down: Kaweco Ruby Red, J. Herbin Rouge Opera and Pelikan Edelstein Star Ruby and Lamy Vibrant Pink. From top right down: Colorverse No. 5 Lights on Ceres, Colorverse #19 Red Shift, and Pelikan Edelstein Tourmaline.

J. Herbin Rouge Opera is probably the closest in hue though Herbin inks are notoriously wet. Tourmaline is the only other one with true sheen, Vibrant Pink has sheen plus metallic gold glitter and is much lighter pink. Colorverse #19 and Ruby Red are more red and Colorverse #05 Lights on Ceres is similar to Tourmaline — more magenta but with less sheen.

If you missed out on Tourmaline, then Star Ruby is definitely worth picking up. The sheen created by Star Ruby in wider nibs is quite attractive and will be very noticeable on high sheen papers like Tomoe River. If you have several magenta or pink inks, you might not need another one. Though, if you are like me, you might not be able to resist the temptation anyway.

Tools:

Pens: Midori bullet pencil modified dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Acrylic dip nib pen (Approx. $15)
Swatches: Col-o-dex Rotary Cards ($15)
Brush: Blick Synthetic Round #0
Ink: Pelikan Edelstein Star Ruby ($27.95/€12.40 for 50ml bottle)

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Pelikan for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Art of the Day

Eye Candy: Lamy Bronze Al-Star & Fountain Pen Ink

AnaApril 3, 2019April 9, 20193 Comments

Following the jokes last week on The Pen Addict podcast about trying to urushi a Lamy, I thought it best to share the untainted Lamy Al-Star Bronze before I possibly offer up my Lamy Al-Star to a possible attempt to urushi it, if that’s something that could be attempted. The 2019 Bronze Al-Star ($38) is the most recent in a long line of limited edition Al-Star models. It turns out that just four years ago, in 2015, Lamy released the CopperOrange which is not all that different than the new Bronze. The Bronze pen barrel is more of a light orange color and a darker, ruddier tone that I would think of as bronze.

When I think of bronze, I think of bronze statues that are darker, almost brown with a golden undertone. A Lamy AL-Star in deep chocolate brown metallic would be stunning.

The limited edition Bronze fountain pen ink ($12 for 50ml bottle) is not an exact match for the pen. The ink is more of a burnt orange than what I would think of as a bronze color.

I put the Bronze ink next to several other well-known orange inks for comparison. From top to bottom: Robert Oster Pen Addict Fire on Fire, Lamy Bronze, J. Herbin Orange Indien, Montblanc Lucky Indian, Noodler’s Apache Sunset, Sailor Jentle Apricot.

J. Herbin Indien Orange is closest in color with Apache Sunset being slightly redder and a little dirtier. Fire on Fire is much redder in comparison and both Apricot and Lucky Orange are more saturated and cleaner by contrast. If you’ve ever wanted an orange ink but didn’t want one that was too bright, Bronze might be a good option.

Since the Lamy limited edition inks are so reasonably priced, its hard to skip them, even when I’m just ho-hum about the colors. After several years of Lamy ink scarcity, it’s worth it to grab a bottle, just in case.

Tools:

Pens: Midori bullet pencil modified dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Acrylic dip nib pen (Approx. $15)
Swatches: Col-o-dex Rotary Cards ($15)
Brush: Blick Synthetic Round #0
Ink: Lamy Bronze ($12 for 50ml bottle)

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Vanness Pen Shop for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: The Pre-Show Show

AnaApril 3, 2019April 9, 2019Leave a comment

Tomorrow, I hop a plane to the . Check out The Pen Addict episode from last week to get the lowdown on pen show etiquette and what’s gonna be happening this weekend. Then on Thursday, I’ll meet up with Jesi and both of us will be a part of the live recording of The Pen Addict Podcast on Saturday.

If you won’t be joining Jesi and me in Atlanta, there’s still plenty of podcast fun to be had. You can listen to this week’s episode of Erasable where Caroline Weaver, Andi Talarico and I hosted the show while the boys lounged around drinking Mai Tais or something. We talked about face masks, eyelash extensions and astrology. It was not your average Erasable episode.

The Well-Appointed Desk is taking over the whole stationery community!

Fountain Pen Review: Ferris Wheel Press Brush Fountain Pen

Laura CameronApril 2, 2019April 9, 20197 Comments

Review by Laura Cameron

During Inkmas, Ana shared a special ink from the Ferris Wheel Press Kickstarter campaign. You can see her Sunshine Yellow Brush Fountain Pen ($138 USD) in some of her photos, but she didn’t specifically review the pen. However, she brought it to a knit night for me to try and I had to have one. I managed to sell a pen during the Arkansas Pen Show and immediately sent away for a Brush Fountain Pen of my own!

Ferris Wheel Press bills itself as “a stationary lifestyle brand where the whimsical sights, sounds and nostalgia of the carnival dances with the rat-tat-tat of a traditional print shop.” This gives them a bit of a vintage, steampunk feel. The Brush Fountain Pen is a copper bodied fountain pen with a stainless steel nib, and brass trimmings. It is available in three colors: Crème Glacée White, Printmaker’s Teal and Sunshine Yellow. Each pen comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity, in a cute little box bearing the gold foil logo.

The pens themselves are 5.67″/14.3 cm in length, capped and weigh approximately 23g putting them well within the common weights of TWSBI’s and Lamy AL-Stars’s and slightly lighter than Pilot Metropolitans.

pen weight comparison chart

The pen is sleek, fairly light weight and easy to hold. The cap rim is a brass nut! The cap isn’t postable however – posting it may cause scratches in the shiny painted finish on your pen.

My favorite part about these pens are the brass sections and nibs. I love that the nibs are stamped with the logo, and the section is printed, but not etched, making it lovely to hold.

Part of what made me want this pen was that Ana’s wrote beautifully! The pens come with medium nibs and her was like butter. Mine isn’t quite there (I’m still playing with it and deciding if I want to tune it), but it’s still a delightful experience.

Overall I love this pen and I’m really glad I picked one up for myself!

Papers: Maruman Mnemosyne N182A Inspiration Notebook A5 ($10.50), and Ghost Paper Notebook ($25)
Ink: Robert Oster Honey Bee (50ml for $17.00)

DISCLAIMER: I purchased the Brush Fountain Pen from Ferris Wheel Press with my own funds. However, some of the other items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Paper Review

Notebook Review: Nuuna Inspiration Mood Book

AnaApril 1, 2019March 31, 20191 Comment

Finding a truly unusual notebook is a bit of a feat for me these days so when I stumbled across the Nuuna notebooks at Vanness Pen Shop a couple weeks ago, I was blown away at the innovation and playfulness. I decided to try the Nuuna Inspiration Mood Notebook ($34). It’s 13cm x 19cm (roughly 5″ x 7.5″) with heavyweight cardstock covers printed with a spray paint-style white design on the cover. It looks like a silkscreen print as the white ink feels tactile and very opaque.

While there are not a lot of the accoutrements normally expected with the modern notebook like a back pocket for ephemera or ribbon bookmark, the Nuuna Mood notebook is special in its own way.

Inside is where the magic happens. The pages are printed in an array of undulating hues like skyscapes. Each two page spread looks like a horizon line of some sort to me. It’s like looking out on a foggy morning or staring up at the sky as the sun sets. Maybe you see the shoreline on a foggy day? Whatever the softly shifting colors evoke, you are bound to be inspired to pick this book up just to thumb through the array of colors.

I decided to run the paper through a whole variety of pen and pencil tools to see how it performed. This is definitely the kind of notebook that would be fun to experiment with not just regular pens but brush pens, colored pencils, markers and other tools. I wanted to try them all.

And now for the pen worthiness of this paper. I’m delighted to say that, even with the heavy application of ink to create the “moods,” I didn’t have many issues using the paper. Yes, it’s a bit more absorbent than other papers that might be more specifically designed for fountain pens but there was bound to be a trade-off for the magical color. There was some bleed through with wetter inks and heavier coverage but I plan to set aside a few pages in the back for testing pens as I go along so that I can keep the front of the book looking good and make a mess in the back.

This is the reverse of my test page and it really didn’t show through much. In person, I can see a little bit more. I just happened to luck out and the Aurora Flex nib pen landed right where the darkest printing is on the reverse side so it obscured the tiny dots of showthrough. There are a few dots further up the page where I was using the wet deAtramentis in my Pilot Decimo. You may be able to see the dots just to the right of the spine in the light blue area at the top of the page. Overall though, the paper handled the pens quite well.

To push my luck, I pulled out some folded nib dip pens and really ladled the ink onto the paper. It definitely blobbed and bled at this volume of application. I think the bleeding had as much to do with my over-enthusiastic folded pen as it did for the paper.

As expected. you can see the writing through onto the reverse side of the paper in bloops and blobs. Considering the size and volume, I don’t see as much as I thought I would.

Overall, this notebook is a lot of fun to use and it definitely brightens my spirits. I am looking forward to some creative experiments like adding various brush pens, opaque gel pens and other unique tools that don’t often get used in my collection.

Even if you only intend to jot notes, this would definitely make a budget meeting more pleasant.

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Paper Review

Paper Review: Life Typewriter Paper

AnaMarch 31, 2019April 9, 20194 Comments

While I was in Little Rock for the pen show, I couldn’t resist picking up a pad of Life Typewriting Paper. It is not everyday in 2019 that you find paper specific to typewriting at your favorite pen and stationery shop so how could I pass it up?

The Life Typewriting Paper ($10) is A4 sized sheets in a 50 sheet top bound pad. The paper is a warm white. It’s not ivory or cream colored but its not a bright, arctic white either. The paper is also quite thin. It’s similar in weight to some of the Tomoe River paper or airmail paper.

Like a good typist, I inserted two sheets in my typewriters to protect my platens and tested the paper with four of my typewriters: three manual typewriters and one electric.

I can’t guarantee the newness of my ribbons on any of my typewriters or the enthusiasm with which I pound on my manual typewriters but the paper seemed to perform pretty well. My Privileg being the most finicky but I think that pink ribbon is on its last legs. The Adler, Webster and Smith-Corona all worked as expected.

For comparison purposes, I ran a piece of standard office laser printer paper through the typewriters as well, which is what I usually use for typing. It’s the big box office supply store 24# bond. I used two sheets as well. Obviously, the copy paper is a brighter white which provided more contrast to the typewriters with colored ribbon but I feel like the thicker, softer laser printer paper also absorbed more ink overall and created a cleaner read.

At the last minute, I decided to try this paper with pens and pencil on the off-hand chance that it would prove to exhibit interesting characteristics. I am glad I held off on finishing this review until I could thoroughly test the Life Typewriting Paper with pens. It had an unusual texture and the thinness of the paper reminded me of Tomoe River paper.

The natural clean white of the stock shows ink colors well and inks dry fairly quickly under normal circumstances. When I applied larger swashes of ink like the folded nibs, it did take longer to dry but that’s to be expected.

The paper did show sheen. I didn’t do extensive testing so I don’t know if the sheening is as good as Tomoe but you’ll some sheen. The texture is different. It’s hard to explain… it’s a bit toothier while still being smooth. It’s like difference between silk and satin. They are both smooth but in different ways.

In standard use, fountain pens did not bleed through, only the flex nib, felt tip and liquid ink showed signs of bleed through. The paper is thin like Tomoe River so there is showthrough with everything but pencil. Until Tomoe River though, this Life Typewriting Paper took pencil quite well.

The paper would be good for letter writing or other long form writing. The paper is thin enough to work well with A4 guide sheets.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Vanness Pen Shop for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

Tools:

Tools:

Pens:

Ink:

Pencils:

Notebooks & Paper:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things: