The Pens On My Desk
I love pens!
This summer, I've been trying to learn to paint. This has meant trying to learn to see in shapes and volumes, to mix and blend colours, to work in layers. I've had a lot of fun (and done a fair bit of cursing under my breath).
But, it's also been a reminder that my first love is line.
There is nothing quite like smooth ink flowing out of a pen and creating something from nothing on a fresh piece of paper. Whether it's drawing, a brain-massaging doodle, or good ol' handwriting, I love mark making with pens.
(So much so that I published an essay about the pleasures of pens on paper a few years ago!)
The pens on my desk
I am not an avid pen collector.
Don't get me wrong. I love visiting Wonder Pens and Take Note and drooling over the trays of jewel-like fountain pens and the magical bottles of ink.
My art cart and desk are overflowing with pens. But the jars, bags, and piles are made up of mostly multiples of the same, utilitarian pens that I use day in and day out for my zines, comics, and live illustration work.
A note: I often jokingly describe my drawing style as "extremely uptight". But this is not a joke. I hold my pen extremely tightly (in a way that will very likely end in early arthritis). I like tiny, tight little lines and dots. I have very little space for loose swoops and fancy flourishes. As such, my pen preferences and the experiences I describe below are shaped by this extremely uptight way of working.
The classic Muji pen with a 0.38 nib was my first true pen love. I started writing with these in 2010, when living in Japan. I lived deep in the countryside, where a trip to a big city with a Muji was an EVENT! I would always come home with at least a dozen of these guys. Even though there is now a Muji just across town, I always have a jar filled with them at the ready.
Almost every zine I made from 2021 to 2023 (ie: a lot!) was drawn with one of these. They are perfect for tiny details and stippling and the metal nib does not wear down. They are extremely reliable and worked very well for the detailed linework style I love.
I started looking for an alternative last year out of one frustration: When I would go back to erase pencil marks, the ink would often smear or lift. I've since discovered the magic of a lighter 2H pencil and a kneaded eraser, but my search for more pigmented ink took me to the realm of fineliners.
The first fineliner I started using was the Sakura Micron. I experimented with a variety of sizes to play with different line weights, but found myself going back to the 0.25 nib. Interestingly, this size makes the same line weight as the Muji 0.38.
I used the Microns for a few zine and comic projects, as well as my first forays into sketchnoting. I liked the denser, more pigmented ink, which seemed to settle into the paper a little quicker than the Muji ink (I'm not an ink scientist, so I don't know if this is actually a thing....).
But, when I scanned and photocopied my projects, the results were often a bit grey. I wanted something a little bit darker. I also found that the nylon nib would often wear down before I had used all of the ink. This is likely a DTM problem, not a Micron problem - I grip my pen notoriously tightly and apply more pressure than is advisable. Oops!
Thanks to the amazing Kate Bingaman-Burt and her top notch newsletter, KBBBLOG, I learned about the Faber-Castell Fude Hard nib fineliner. I had been experimenting with Faber-Castell fineliners and found that the ink was more pigmented than the Sakura Micron pens.
Fude (pronounced foo-deh) means bush in Japanese. And, as advertised, the nib is like a little brush. It responds to pressure and gives lots of line variation. I love playing a bit with a true brush pen (see below), but the fude nib fineliner has just enough flex to introduce some fun surprises into my lines, while also being predictable enough that I can rely on it for my teeny tiny letters.
Since I started drawing with these, I haven't looked back. There is one in each of my bags, two on my desk, one in my pencil case, and at least four fresh fudes waiting in the art cart to be called into service.
But, burning through fineliners means an awful lot of plastic. I'm on the look out for a fountain pen alternative - if you know the perfect one, please let me know!
My friend Elly sent me this Twisby fountain pen and jar of beautiful Pilot Iroshizuku ink a few years ago as a surprise and I felt extremely loved. It's a beautiful pen that is simple and fun to fill. The ink is a perfect shade of DTM blue. And I feel very elegant when writing with it.
But, I have to admit, I don't use it all of the time. It's just a little unpredictable for my uptight ways. The lovely ink bleeds a bit on the paper I tend to use. My lines come out a little wobbly.
I'm going to keep practicing with this one - watch out for more blue drawings ahead!
Last but not least, one that is just for fun: a Pentel brush pen. I have fun pretending to be a loose, relaxed, chill person when playing with this pen. I don't turn to it every day.
Even more than my Twisby fountain pen, this one is free flowing and unpredictable and produces the most fun, variable lines. The ink is dark and pigmented and can be refilled. It's a strange delight to see how different my lines and letters appear when I'm writing with this very soft brush.
Pens forever!
Earlier this week, I visited my friend Claire Battershill's class to chat with her students about the magic of sketchnoting. One of the things we talked about was just how good writing with pen and paper makes your brain feel.
Yes, there is all kinds of neuroscience on handwriting and recall, on the synthetic work of selecting and filtering information.
But it also just feels good.
And finding small things that feel good is an important thing to do.
If you are a Pen Person and have suggestions of fountain pens that may give the same line and a similar feel as my fave Faber-Castell Fude pen, I would love your recommendation!
