Oh, what a glow! Flourescent accents make this simple space POP!
(via Werkplek met fluo)
Faber Castell Pitt Drawing Chalks on Flickr.
Box of vintage A.W. Faber Castell black drawing chalks “Pitt” in round medium.
(on loan from the Ben Jones collection)
Vintage Eagle Turquoise 2H Pencils
(on loan from the Ben Jones collection)
Midori Brass “Bullet” Pencil
The Hunt continues….
Anyone who knows me (or who has followed this blog for any amount of time) knows I have a thing for the color green, particularly in the yellow-green hues but any green is better than the finest red or purple or blue in my world. So I, of course, will buy any green pen that crosses my path. Some I like, some I love, some not-so-much. Here’s the most recent array.
From the top:
- Zebra Sarasa 0.4 Light Green
- Uniball Signo Bit 0.18 (no longer available in green. red and black only)
- Marvy Le Pen Olive Green
- Uniball Signo DX 0.28
- Pentel Slicci 0.4
- Muji 0.38
- Muji 0.5
- Uniball Signo 0.38 Lime Green
- Pilot Hi Tec C 0.4 Apple Green
- Stabilo 88 0.4 Apple Green
The Muji pens are described as “gel ballpoint” on the website but I’m fairly convinced they are what most would consider a liquid rollerball ink. The line widths are considerably thicker than comparably sized gel ink pens. The 0.38 was almost more of an aqua blue and the 0.5 is a deep forest green. I’m not a fan of either color in my search for “the perfect green” but both pens write smoothly and are priced so that I leave them on my desk for visitors to use as I wouldn’t be devasted if either of them walked away. I’d be curious to see what some of the other colors in the Muji line look like though.
There are two felt-tip pens in the running, the Marvy Le Pen in Olive Green and the Stabilo 88 in Apple Green. The Le Pen is quite a dark green but considerably less blue than the 0.5 Muji which is closest in color. I love the simplicity of the overall look of the LePens — they have not changed in 30 years but I prefer some of the other colors in the line over the green, The Stabilo 88 is a lovely shade of green but it behaves so much like a felt tip pen as to be a challenge to use very often (it has a tendency to feather and bleed). The Stabilo pen itself is really long too, almost unwielding, even with the cap unposted. But I am quite taken with the color!
The rest of the pens in the running are of the gel ink variety. The Signo Bit 0.18 (no longer available in green) is so pale and micro that it basically disappears on the page. The other Signo models write nicely and the color of the 0.38 in Lime Green is quite fetching. The color of the Uniball DX is a bit to emerald for my liking. The last three are my go-to gel pen brands: Pilot Hi-Tec-C, Zebra Sarasa and Pentel Slicci. The Zebra Saras color is a tiny bit too light but its one of the more comfortable disposable pens and I get a twisted satisfaction clicking the retractable point. I own several of these and they can be found on just about every working surface. Maybe I need to get a Zebra Sarasa multi-pen?
The Pilot Hi-Tec-C is a lovely color and fits into a lovely lime green mulit-pen body. Replaceable ink cartridges mean that if or when my fascination switches to purple or blue or some other color combination, I can still use the same pen body.
I always want to like the Pentel Slicci — they really are slick-y when I write with them, but for some reason I just find them a bit too insubstantial in my hands. I think they have a narrower barrel than a LePen, if you can believe it.
My final tally:
- Uniball Signo 0.38 in Lime Green
- Pilot Hi-Tec-C 0.4 in Apple Green
- Zebra Sarasa 0.4 in Light Green
Does anyone else have a favorite color pen? Have you found the one true blue to rule them all? Or purple? Or red?
Ink Drop Samples: February 2012
I just joined the Ink Drop, the Goulet Pens monthly subscription service that sends five ink samples directly to subscribers every month. I was lucky enough to subscribe in time to receive the February Valentine’s Day assortment which included Noodler’s Purple Heart and Black Swan in Australian Roses, Diamine Pink Hope, Waterman Red and Private Reserve Chocolat.
To test these colors, I used a dip pen so I could quickly sample each color with minimum clean up between colors — just swipe the nib with a rag and dip the next color. Nib is of an unknown origin, fairly stiff in a Koh0i-nor No. 127 N cork and wood holder. This is not my finest lettering or anything, I just wanted to see how these colors performed.
I was surprised how much I liked the Diamine Hope Pink, with a fine line its a bright magenta pink. With a flexible or wider nib, the color darkens to a rubine red. It also feathered least of all the inks. As this is my first experience with Diamine inks, I am excited to discover if this phenomena is common with all Diamine inks or if its just a quirk of this perky pink.
I would describe both of the Noodler’s colors as tinted blacks. The Purple Heart is a black-purple and the Black Swan in Australian Roses is a black-red. The Purple Heart is not distinct enough in color for my taste but I find the subtle color of the Black Swan in Aussie Roses to be intriguing.
The Waterman Red (now called Audacious Red) is a bit on the orange-y side of the reds. Its a bright tomato-y color. Red isn’t an ink color I would normally choose for myself but this makes me consider searching others out to compare.
The last sample is the Private Reserve Chocolat which is a rich chocolatey tone. They couldn’t have picked a better name for it. I have tried two other browns so far, J. Herbin Lie de The and Waterman Havana Brown (now called Absolute Brown) and I think I am going to prefer Private Reserve Chocolat. Its a much warmer dark brown. Havana Brown is a little bit lighter and a touch more neutral in color. Lie de The is lighter with a distinctly greenish cast in comparison.
PS: In case you’re curious, I used my Miquelrius medium notebook with grid paper to test the inks.
Peanuts Moleskine Weekly Planner
If you had asked back in November what planner I would choose as my planner for 2012, I’m pretty sure that the Peanuts Moleskine weekly planner would not have even made it on the list. However, since I waited until the first week of January to actually commit to a planner, my options were not only limited but almost nil. That’s not to say I haven’t ended up being quite pleased with the hand that fate dealt me.
I scoured around looking for a week-at-a-glance planner in a size approximately 5”x8” (give or take) preferably with a hardcover. I am choosy about the fonts used for the dates, the color of the lines or presence or said lines (I tend to avoid them if at all possible) and that left my options fairly limited even before my procrastination.
I finally just had to make a decision and it was getting to be well into the first and then second week of January. Lo and behold, I found the Peanuts large weekly planner with no lines on the date side of the page and then a full lined page for notes each week. Perfect. And somehow, Charlie Brown’s mopey face on the cover was just the sort of humor I needed for work.
But the best surprise was found tucked into the back pocket: a small address book, prefect for keeping all my correspondents information handy.
For every couple letters of the alphabet nicked into tabs is a simple lined page with plenty of room for not just addresses and phone numbers but also an array of additional information as suited to your needs.
Despite my normal reticence to Moleskines somewhat thin paper, this creates a thin volume that doesn’t add a lot of bulk to my day-to-day bag and still leaves plenty of room for meetings, notes and reminders.
I would definitely consider another one of these planners for next, with or without the Peanuts gang gracing the cover.