PigPog

Now I’m back home in my little creative paradise, I have been re-acquainting myself with some long lost friends. Allow me to re-introduce them to you.

Acrylic Paint

My bold, brash chum. Beautiful, bright and bubbly, and if I’m honest, ever so slightly intimidating. I want to dive in and play but the sheer intensity of the colour makes me a little nervous about making any marks with the stuff. In Art Therapy recently I was invited to have a go at finger painting, and that seemed easier than being all artisty with a brush. So acrylic paint to me is a friend who wants to take me on and adventure but I’m not quite brave enough to let them. One day…

Charcoal

Charcoal’s a cheeky monkey. Unpredictable and a bit loopy. When I’m with them I’m guaranteed to be up to my elbows in dark dust within five minutes of using the stuff. It’s the friend who gets me into trouble whenever we’re together, but I love every minute of it.

Oil Pastel

Bright, happy and childlike. A friend I should spend more time with because I’m sure there is more to explore.

Ink

Another bold, brash and rather frightening friend. Apparently knows all my secrets and tells the world in blot patterns. One to be careful with.

Watercolour

My artistic BFF. It’s soft and subtle when I want to be soft and subtle. It’s bold when I want to be bold. It’s easy to work with (especially with Aquash brushes), and doesn’t leave a mess.

Good to be back with you, friends.

After returning the Sheaffer PFM I bought on eBay, with a very helpful seller, I now have my first Parker Vacumatic. I like it a lot. Filling is easy, it writes nicely, and looks beautiful. I also got a Parker/Silver Crane ceramic desk tidy, in almost perfect condition.

A new pen meant new ink, so I got myself a bottle of Diamine Teal. Nice colour.

I have a Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.3mm pencil, which I’d filled with Pilot Eno 2B leads, because I get on better with softer lead. The problem was that it wore down very quickly. I couldn’t use it for taking notes at work, because I’d have to stop to click more lead out three or more times when writing down an address.

Today, I finally got around to trying it out with Pentel AIN HB grade lead, and it’s much better. Yes, the line isn’t as dark, so it’s not quite as easy to read, but I can write several lines between clicks.

Ever since we started selling Diamine Inks at Cult Pens, I’ve been using almost nothing else. Until today, I’ve had good experience with every colour I’ve tried – Prussian Blue, Steel Blue, Umber, Saddle Brown, WES Imperial Blue – all have behaved very well. I picked up a bottle of Blue-Black last week, and loved the colour so much I flushed out both of my current pens, and filled them up with it.

I had flow problems with my Sheaffer Clipper Snorkel fairly quickly, and switched to the Pelikan M600, which never misbehaves. I started having flow problems with that, too.

By this afternoon, both pens were writing unevenly and skipping.

I’ve flushed them both out, and fed them both Waterman Blue-Black, and they seem fine again.

I love Diamine inks in general, and every other one I’ve tried has been great, but the Blue-Black does seem to be quite different stuff.

• Parker Executive – the rebirth of the old Rotring Quattro – surprisingly nice.
• Today’s LOLcat is CPR Cat.
• Bonus LOLcat: It’s Called Food.
• We have Waterman ink in bottles now.
• DIY Planner: Basic Fountain Pen Restoration, Part 1.