Ink Snippet: De Atramentis Jane Austen

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DeAtramentis Jane Austen ink writing sample

It’s been Blue Week here at Fountain Pen Follies for more than two weeks. Which surely has created a gap in the space-time continuum, because it seems that even the world’s biggest blue ink fan has grown weary of blue ink.

So I cleaned out three pens filled with blue ink, and searched for an ink that was appealing and not-blue. It took a while, but eventually I found a tiny amount of De Atramentis Jane Austen, left over from the Chicago Pen Show. And Jane Austen is one of my favorite writers.

I was very happy to put De Atramentis Jane Austen into a Pelikan 400 with OBB nib. It turns out to be a lighter forest green, with shading. Not perhaps my favorite color, though the shading is nice. And not the color that I would have chosen for Austen, who was acutely attuned to the comical and the absurd, whereas this ink seems very serious.

But maybe it has a Regency flavor. And it’s a nice color.

It’s an ink that seems to be on the dry side. That vintage Pelikan is a firehose, and the ink doesn’t look very dark, does it? So that could be nice for wetter pens.

Here’s a look at the ink from a different angle, because I think you can sometimes get a better feel for the color when you don’t think about what’s written. Also, shallow depth of field always makes a person feel artsy.  Even if the reason for it was just dusk.

De Atramentis Jane Austen ink writing sample

Jane Austen, incredibly, was born in 1775. Here’s what Anthony Trollope, another English novelist, said of her in 1870:

Miss Austen was surely a great novelist. What she did, she did perfectly…. She wrote of the times in which she lived, of the class of people with which she associated, and in the language which was usual to her as an educated lady. Of romance—what we generally mean when we speak of romance—she had no tinge: heroes and heroines with wonderful adventures there are none in her novels. Of great criminals and hidden crimes she tells us nothing.

But she places us in a circle of gentlemen and ladies, and charms us while she tells us with an unconscious accuracy how men should act to women, and women act to men. It is not that her people are all good; and, certainly, they are not all wise. The faults of some are the anvils on which the virtues of others are hammered till they are bright as steel. In the comedy of folly, I know no novelist who has beaten her. The letters of Mr. Collins, a clergyman in Pride and Prejudice, would move laughter in a low-church archbishop.

Pen of the Day: Kaweco Classic Sport with Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-iro

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Kaweco Classic Sport clear with Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-iro ink

Kaweco Classic Sport with double broad nib. Here’s an ink I had never used, but I found a leftover sample vial with just a little bit remaining. That’s a perfect situation for the Kaweco Classic Sport. I don’t need to go through contortions to fill a Sport from a small sample — I can syringe whatever ink is left into the pen body or a converter.

Here is Ama-iro with the Kaweco double broad nib.

Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-iro ink writing sample

The Kaweco Sport also lets one easily swap nibs. So here’s Ama-iro from an extra-fine nib, for Fountain Pen Geeks forum.

Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-iro ink writing sample

But I’m in it for the bling, frankly. So for me the eyedropper is key. Especially when the ink is a beautiful sky blue like Ama-iro.

Kaweco Classic Sport clear eyedropper with Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-iro ink

The Mark Twain Cure

Laura2 Comments

Montblanc BMW writing sample

I have been in something of a reading funk for the last four months, but I recently found a book I sped through with a smile: a collection of Mark Twain quotes.

Like the foregoing, which is certainly my motto: “Do not put off until tomorrow what can be put until day-after-tomorrow.”

And this one, which encapsulates my pen and ink problem, but makes me feel better about it:  “A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.”

Caran d'Ache Divine Pink writing sample

And then there’s this comment that Twain had Satan make to a newcomer to Hell.

Parker Penman Sapphire writing sample

I guess even in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we Chicagoans must have been enthusiastic civic boosters, and a little hard to take.

Ah well, we love our city. At least we’re number one.

Rock, Scissors, Paper

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writing samples on Eaton's Eminence Onion Skin paper

I was helping my father look for some things when I came across an old box of typing paper. Marked 49 cents, it’s a 100-sheet box of typewriter paper. The box says onion skin, 9 pounds, and 25 percent cotton fiber content.

(click Page 2 below to continue)

Pages: 1 2

Pen of the Day: Kaweco Classic Sport Blue

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Parker Penman Sapphire ink Kaweco Classic Sport blue

Kaweco Classic Sport with calligraphy nib. Again we have what’s really an Ink of the Day, but, shhh, don’t tell anyone. This is the sample of Parker Penman Sapphire a friend very kindly sent me.

Is it the world’s most beautiful blue ink?

Parker Penman Sapphire ink writing sample

The pen is my son’s Kaweco Classic Sport in blue, which is a very good pen at an excellent price. I swapped in Kaweco’s 1.1 mm calligraphy nib, which is a smooth writer with excellent line variation, and another real bargain.

Parker Penman Sapphire ink Kaweco Classic Sport blue

Looking at the Five KWZ Azure Inks

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KWZ Azure #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 ink swabs

I have used and reviewed all five of the KWZ dye-based Azure inks, and I like the whole family, but I think we could use a sort of cheat sheet.

Here are links to the full reviews:

Together the five Azure comprise a nice range of blue inks that are low-maintenance and nicely saturated. Azure #1 kicks things off as KWZ’s traditional or standard blue, and it is the lightest and least saturated of the five. Azure #2 is a darker blue but still in the standard range. With the next three Azures, we get more fun, offbeat and vibrant shades of blue.

My quick summary goes something like this:

Most standard: Azure #1.

Most serious: Azure #2.

Most lively: Azure #3 wins by a whisker. But Azure #4 and Azure #5 also have a great kick.

Most uncommon shade of blue: Azure #4.

Most like Parker Penman Sapphire: Azure #3. Not a clone, though. Azure #5 has something of the PPS feel, too.

Best on poor paper:  Azure #2 and Azure #5.

Most dry: Azure #2 and Azure #3.

Most wet: Azure #4 and Azure #5.

Best shading: Azure #4.

Best sheen: Azure #4.

Easiest to clean: They all clean out wonderfully easily.

Most water resistant:  Azure #2. With a big “but.” On normal paper they’ll all soak in sufficiently. On fountain-pen friendly paper, none is actually water-resistant, but Azure #2 seems to survive the best of the five.

Best for a Lamy Safari: Azure #4. This is a category of interest to exactly one person in the entire world. But that would be me.

Most swoon-worthy: Azure #3 (more dry) and Azure #5 (more wet).

I think they are all excellent. I received samples of Azure #2 and Azure #3 from KWZ to do those reviews.

Pen of the Day: Montblanc 146 (Another One) (Maybe for the Last Time)

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Montblanc 146 with Montblanc BMW ink

Montblanc 146 with broad nib. This is actually not the same 146 with broad nib that I was using last week with Caran d’Ache Infra Red. Because, currently, I have two. Sigh. Bad Fountain Pen Follies.

Would you believe that I have two by accident? And if not, what would you believe? Aliens? Amnesia? Feel free to tell me, so I can use that instead.

Montblanc 146 with Montblanc BMW ink

This is my newer 146 with broad nib. And I have been intending to sell it. But, see, it’s lucky that I’ve been dragging my feet on that. Because it’s such a good pen. And because when this Montblanc BMW ink arrived, I had the perfect pen to put it in.

And they say procrastination is bad.

Montblanc BMW ink writing sample

Words of Wisdom to Kick Off Another Week

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“With my experience of social media, I thought that idiots were going to idiot.”

– JK Rowling

I love this woman. Every time I read something she says, I think, “perfect.” Then, “I need to remember that and use it sometime.”

In this case, Rowling was talking about an upset that arose in some people’s minds when the director of a new Harry Potter play cast as Hermione Granger an award-winning actress, who happens to be black.

I love Rowling’s almost zen-like acceptance here. It’s just a fact: idiots are going to idiot. But thank goodness most of us aren’t idiots.

I wish I could see the play. It’s neat to think of everyone all grown up. And Ron and Hermione look great up there. I couldn’t ever really see Emma Watson and Rupert Grint together, but those two make sense to me. I’m feeling a little cursed myself, for living an ocean away from the West End.

——————

Photo of the Granger-Weasley family from the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Twitter account

 

Montblanc BMW Ink: The Ultimate Writing Machine?

Laura2 Comments

Montblanc BMW ink bottle and swabs

I got a neat package yesterday including this ink: Montblanc’s BMW ink.

It appears to be part of the Montblanc for BMW collection, celebrating BMW’s 7 Series cars. I say “appears” because that link only describes a lot of leather goods and a Platinum LeGrand rollerball and fountain pen. Unmentioned is any ink.

It’s almost as if they considered ink minor, or insignificant. How … strange.

These encounters with normal, well-adjusted people can really make a person wonder.

Luckily I have a friend who agrees with me that ink is the most important thing ever, who sent me a bottle. And it’s inked up already. Because, blue.

It’s a nice blue, with nice shading.  I’ll certainly post more about it, and do a review, in the days to come. Because, blue.