The Perfect Page.

[halffriedchicken]

4 minutes ago, Rroberrt said:

Thank you ‘Halffried’.  You reminded me of something I overlooked while enjoying that one pretty (and parallel) word - “Progress not perfection”.  Very perceptive of you, if I may say.

 

 

You're very welcome! I think we all need reminders sometimes to appreciate the smaller things. And to be honest, your word of the day challenged me to slow down with my writing today and not let the page turn so quickly.

 

BTW, I like the brown earthy ink with that cream colored paper, a nice combination.

[sirgilbert357]

1 hour ago, Rroberrt said:

Ah! But dear inkstainedruth, I am smitten.  I have seen the grail abroad at FPN. 

 

I shall continue to pursue parallelism, in company with ‘IthinkIhaveaproblem’ and the good SirGilbert - encouraged by the wisdom of “halffriedchicken”.

 

Now if I only knew whether my parallels should stand upright, or should writing join the rest of my attributes - leaning backwards.

 

What do you like the look of best? I think sometimes we can make a conscious effort to form our own personal "font" a certain way -- nothing wrong with doing it that way. I have done that myself and once you decide on how you want it to look, it just becomes a matter of practice to make it permanent muscle memory.

 

I did this with several letters/aspects in my handwriting. If something I was taught didn't really look or feel right, I modified it until it suited me, then practiced it. I have quite literally written hundreds upon hundreds (if not thousands) of pages practicing my handwriting. I forget when I joined here, but I've been doing it since that date. I blow through Clairefontaine spiral bound notebooks for my handwriting practice and it's not uncommon to write 100 pages in a 2 or 3 weeks. I also flip the notebook when I turn a page so that the spiral is always to my left...and I use every square inch of page, starting next to the spiral and going past the margin to the edge of the page. I'm just trying to maximize my use of the page. Yes, it still gets expensive...but it is worth it to me.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

10 minutes ago, sirgilbert357 said:

I also flip the notebook when I turn a page so that the spiral is always to my left...and I use every square inch of page, starting next to the spiral and going past the margin to the edge of the page. I'm just trying to maximize my use of the page. Yes, it still gets expensive...but it is worth it to me.

I’ve recently started doing the same with my practice notebook. Much nicer with the spiral always in the left. 

[sirgilbert357]

2 hours ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

I’ve recently started doing the same with my practice notebook. Much nicer with the spiral always in the left. 

 

My 7 yr old daughter was using my most recent notebook to pick out a new ink color for her Pilot Kakuno. As she flipped through it looking for "that blue" (Sailor Bungbox Hatsukoi), she said "How do you read this thing??" LOL. 🤣

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

26 minutes ago, sirgilbert357 said:

 

My 7 yr old daughter was using my most recent notebook to pick out a new ink color for her Pilot Kakuno. As she flipped through it looking for "that blue" (Sailor Bungbox Hatsukoi), she said "How do you read this thing??" LOL. 🤣

nice.  

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

First thing to do against a woolly line or feathering is up grade your paper.

 

There are some inks that feather....or have a woolly line.

Pelikan Edelstein's Aventurine for me, writes with a woolly line.

The other Edelsteins I have, some 12-15 don't.

Go ask in Inky Thoughts what ink colors you like, don't feather or have a woolly line.

 

Many of the posters doing ink reviews never mention the woolly line that shows in their reviews....perhaps they think it is normal.

Yet some of the paper used is fairly good.

 

I get very OCD over a woolly line, much less feathering.

I even have a system of how bad it is.

 

The way I grade inks.....on good to better paper....90g or better, preferably laser only, in laser &ink jet is a compromise; it must absorb ink jet ink quickly.

 

Ink Jet paper is the Feather Champ of papers.

 

xxxx

BEF...bare eyed woolly line or feathering from a sitting position.....don't buy again.

 

NEF, near your eye feathering...woolly line. An OK ink....there are better inks...will do.

 

MagF.....using a honking big magnifying glass (1 1/2" or 7 cm thick**), then and only then woolly line or feathering. A Very Good Ink, buy more.

 

NoMagF... under magnification, no woolly line, much less feathering.......perfect ink. Buy Stock in the company.....or hoard supplies of the ink And the paper.

 

** can't use a 10X or Chinese 40X or all look a bit woolly.

 

Writing is 1/3 nib width/flex, 1/3 paper and 1/3 ink and in that order.

Paper is so very important.

 

Go over and look at any of the resent posts of the just passed Sandy1, in ink reviews. Using 4-5 normal pens of different nib widths and 4-5 good to better papers, can and often makes the ink seem like a completely different ink.

 

Sadly, Her early pictures for her reviews on Phobucket are gone....haven't gotten around to look at her last reviews with perhaps a different picture service. 

Her inheritors didn't understand what a great treasure they dumped....

 

Even if all her pictures are gone, there are other reviewers you can get the color or a bit of it (they don't do 4 nibs and 4 papers though)....then read the bare cupboard of Sandy's description of the ink.She was our Ink Guru.

 

[halffriedchicken]

1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Go over and look at any of the resent posts of the just passed Sandy1, in ink reviews. Using 4-5 normal pens of different nib widths and 4-5 good to better papers, can and often makes the ink seem like a completely different ink.

 

Sadly, Her early pictures for her reviews on Phobucket are gone....haven't gotten around to look at her last reviews with perhaps a different picture service. 

Her inheritors didn't understand what a great treasure they dumped....

 

Even if all her pictures are gone, there are other reviewers you can get the color or a bit of it (they don't do 4 nibs and 4 papers though)....then read the bare cupboard of Sandy's description of the ink.She was our Ink Guru.

I haven't posted very much on FPN and I only recently starting looking at FPN regularly, so I sadly did not know of Sandy1's passing.

 

But I have referenced FPN to research reviews of different pens and inks and I always looked to read a review from Sandy1 first before reading any other review, especially since I have an affinity for blue-black inks. I truly appreciated her ink reviews and am sad to hear of her passing and that an integral part of her work has not been archived.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Me too.....a very fine Lady.

 

If you like BB's, go to the huge ESSR thread....one of the longest on the Com. I called the ink sneaky, in various papers made it do somewhat different things. She called it mischievous.

[Rroberrt]

7 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

……Upgrade your paper….

 

If you like BB's, go to the huge ESSR thread....one of the longest on the Com. I called the ink sneaky, in various papers made it do somewhat different things. She called it mischievous.

Thank you for chiming in. Once again, you offered us three weeks of homework - thank you again.

 

The abbreviation, “Thurs”, above was I think, a “Honking great mag.” grade, for feathering.  I did not notice it until the photograph.  The paper was from my first Clair fontaine notebook. The ink Pelikan Brilliant Black.  Not sure about the notebook - it seems a little - well, glossy, compared to what Ive used.

 

I’m assuming BB means Blue Black.  Hm, my daughter raves about that color, but I don’t yet see it.

[Rroberrt]

BoBo….I need help.

 

Sorry to bother you - I’m probably looking right at them, but I can’t find “Inky Thoughts”,  or, “ESSR”.

[Bo Bo Olson]

No problem....if I knew everything, I'd be telling Billy Gates what time he has to be at work.

 

According to Richard, a good BB goes down blue and changes to black a day later.

 

ESSB can change color before your eyes, or take a day or even three depending on paper.

Long ago I did a 17 pen-40 paper test of ESSR.

 

The only paper that it didn't eventually turn black on was ancient Eaton's Corrasable Typewriter paper. That cost $1.05 back just after silver money left town. 16 pound 25% cotton, one side use as typewriter paper is coated.... A bleeder paper, but the front is great for fountain pens....

A paper almost too good to use....or not with out thought in I only have 30 sheets of the original box. May have been something left over from my collage days in the early '70's. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Go up to Forums, click that on, scroll down past  the pen maker sub section, Asia, other brands.

Then.....

Inks, Inc.

Right under that will be Inky Thoughts.

In that subsection, type in ESSR in search, push the 'button'  in this sub section, and click on this forum. Then hit search.

It will bring up 5 pages of threads.

It comes in a 110ml plastic bottle....and seems to have had a major price jump. 8-9 years ago, It was inexpensive.

 

It's got no chemicals so is only good for some two years.

 

You will find it was once the remnant of an ancient British ink company, that got bought up and gutted by a conglomerate.  One of the managers got the huge wooden Tun and the recipe as settlement. He liked that ink so saved it for the world. 

[halffriedchicken]

58 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

It comes in a 110ml plastic bottle....and seems to have had a major price jump. 8-9 years ago, It was inexpensive.

 

 

I was reading the reviews and it seems like ESSB is an ink I would have probably liked, especially for the value that it was. I saw that it was a fraction of the price of Diamine Registrar's ink a few years ago. With shipping costs to the USA and today's conversion, one bottle of ESSB is about $30 USD, which actually costs more than what I would pay for a 100ml bottle of Diamine's Registrar's. Sadly, shipping costs make this not so great a deal in the US today.

 

Honestly, it was a bit sad to see Sandy1's review without any pictures, especially from a review of an ink that she recommended so highly. 

[Rroberrt]

Dear Smug Dill, 

 

While perusing some Paper and Paraphernalia  sites, I came across an album which was attributed to you, which outlined someone’s concept of, “A Perfect Page”.  

 

I would love to be considered the Handsome  Scotsman portrayed therein but alas, even my wife smiled sadly when shown the picture, shook her head, and said, “No dear, not on your best day” 

 

Don’t think I’ll visit that site again. (At least they got my bonnet right.)

[A Smug Dill]

@Rroberrt If you want to draw the attention of someone who has not replied in the discussion thread at hand, and may or may not have been following or even just reading it, you may want to use the @-notation (and be sure to select from the list that appears, not just type the user's display name in whole and then quickly move onto the next word) when mentioning him or her in your post. Most likely, that will trigger a notification to the mentioned user.

 

Anyway, I didn't want to disrupt or derail your thread with an alternative interpretation of the title.

[Rroberrt]

  @A Smug Dill Magic!

 

Thanks for the heads-up.

 

The artist got the paraphernalia right on.  Clever.

[A Smug Dill]

2 minutes ago, Rroberrt said:

The artist got the paraphernalia right on.  Clever.

 

Ha, thank you! I was using this as the reference/model:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_(servant)#/media/File:Marianne_Stokes_-_The_Queen_and_the_Page.jpg

but I didn't want to use black for the clothing, and so just used a darkish colour already in an inked pen that was on hand at the time. To be honest, I wasn't actually thinking Scottish with the hair colour and the attire at the time; I just wanted ‘her‘ to have blonde hair and ‘his’ hair darker in contrast.

[Rroberrt]

Please elucidate: How did we get from Mz Stokes boring spindly Page to a perfect braw Scots…something - surely not a Page. 

 

I fear that some liberties have been taken by the artist. (…and is that @A Smug Dill?

[sirgilbert357]

I wish I could see whatever you guys are talking about. If there was a link or something, I must have missed it.

[Rroberrt]

My fault, Sir, I spotted a post relating to, “A Perfect Page”, and wrongly assumed some connection to this thread. Turned out it had nothing to do with this thread, but concerned a painting of a medieval Queen and her page.

 

In sorting it out, we got off track.  Sorry.