With all the materials floating around in our world, there must be something readily available that makes for an excellent FP blotter. I don't know what it is, whether sytrofoam egg packaging (never tried it, but seemed neat), or something I can use in a pinch for blotter the last words in my journal, anxious to turn the leaf and continue my adventure.

Anybody have suggestions on this?

Blotting paper is available by the sheet at my local stationery store. People stick it into those large desk pads that were used as a writing surface. (Gosh, I don't remember seeing any lately, due to people having computers on their desks. Are they even made any longer?) The blotters I've seen came in white and colors and was pretty cheap. You could just cut it up to make little personal blotters for yourself.

Art supply stores carry true blotting paper. It's used by printmakers on their presses, when making etchings, lithographs, monotypes, etc. This stuff only comes in white and it's thicker than the sheets used for desk pads. Very strong and absorbent.

Or, you could use those little round cardboard disks that you get under glasses of beer in a bar. They're certainly absorbent!

Another solution: paper towels. Stick a sheet in between the leaves, close the book, open it, then remove the towel before you start writing on the other side of the sheet. I've done it. Works pretty well. Not very elegant.

Oh, and writers in the 18th century used sand. They kept little shaker jars of fine sand on their desk and sprinkled it over documents to sop up the ink. I've never tried it, but always thought it was cool. I think I remember reading that researchers have found bits of sand embedded in some manuscript inks.

I don't think styrofoam egg cartons would work. The plastic isn't absorbent. It's got a different structure than a sponge.

ElaineB

I wasn't serious about the styrofoam.

Thanks for the other suggestions. I will go to an art supply store or maybe an office supply store. That's easier for me than trying to track down a fountain pen store (we do have a few in the area, but they are at mauls and I avoid those when I can.) Since I write often at Starbucks, I have been using their napkins.

Hi Elaine, Fulcanelli,

Over here blotter paper is readily available at any office stationery store. I buy the large sheets and have them cut at the store for easy transport .

Also, most fountain pen friendly notepads have either a blotter side to the front cover, or have a page, often the top one, that is a combined rule guide and blotter. I use the latter a lot when writing letters.

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Bengals make excellent blotters though our breeder tells me that blue-black is not an approved colour for show cats.

Really ?!

I got a real giggle out of this one.

The typo is soooo apropos.

malls - mauls

you know those cheap notecards that often come with charity $ requests?

Most of those are not FP friendly and feather a lot.

so they make half-decent blotters.

I don't get those. They probably know better than to approach me, even in the mail.

Hi Corien,

"Really?" to which remark? The pen/stationery stores I tend to frequent (but that is als true for the ones I only occasionaly visit) all have blotter paper.
And all of the notepads I have, do have a cover page which, on the inside, is blotter paper, and all of the more expensive ones I have, tend to have a first page of blotter paper and/or lines, which you tear off and use as such.

HTH, warm regards, Wim

My furkids tend to smear the ink and leave pawprints.

Len Provisor carries blotters, and makes custom blotters should anyone feel so inclined.

Provisor Blotters

Gerry

For us Merkins, a paper company called Bard Paper sells 25-packs of heavyweight 8x10 blotter paper on eBay for a pretty reasonable price. Good stuff; I use it daily. Much more convenient than getting the big desk-sized sheets from an office-supply store...

I was actually looking for information on makeshift blotters more than store bought. I got to thinking that the way we recycle things these days, there are probably natural blotter materials in everyday items I might encounter in my life. I was really thinking along the lines of the suggestion above for the charity requests suggested by Kcat. When I'm busily writing at Starbucks, I don't care if I'm doing everything proper like, using the proper protocol. (I only care about such things when I'm at home and nobody can see me.)

That's the impulse that at least the cause for this post. However, add whatever comments you like.

My son made me a small - alternative, if you will - blotter. <_<

Blasted embedded images!!

Without the ".jpg" extension, I can't embed them. And it's been to long a day to fight it... Link's provided if you wish:

Basic blotter Proper holding technique..

Anyway - Very cheap to "refill" with your favorite 4" square, highly absorbant, material! (Quilting optional..) The "proper holding technique" involves pinching the material with your thumb on one side and your middle finger on the other. This keeps the "blotter" paper stretched tight across the wood.

The blotter itself was made from some leftover balsa wood used in his model airplane building. Very easy to trim with a razor knife and glue with whatever you have handy.

It works for me! Your mileage may vary...

What a great son! And what a great present! Balsa wood, eh? I haven't played with the stuff since I was a kid but that looks really handy! Hmmmmmm, the local art supply store is open tomorrow. I might have to go on a little shopping expedition.

ElaineB

That does sound like a good one. Assuming we don't get the 6+" of snow 'they' have threatened us with tonight, I think I'll do the same thing...head up to the art supply store.

What's the point of a blotter anyway? I want the ink on the paper, not in the blotter. If that means I need to be patient, so be it, or maybe I blow a little.

Some while ago, many coworkers here mysteriously had green fingers. Eventually, the phenomenon could be tracked down to some notes written in PR Sherwood Green I was handing out. I thought it was pretty funny.

heh.. well, not everyone likes our inky badges as much as we do.

when journaling, I am often rushing to write something quickly so it doesn't get lost between my hand and the paper. I don't want to have to wait to flip the page. my neurons only hold so much info. so I'll have something tucked into the journal as a blotter just to keep from having spots and blobs on facing pages.

same thing in my small agenda - the paper is fairly smooth and if I'm out at a doc appt. or something, I may not have time to wait for ink to dry. i keep a pseudo-blotter in there. It also serves as a pretty good page marker.

This is what I used to think......... until I started using PR Plum and PR Tanzanite ink

Me too, until I started using Noodler's Ottoman Rose and thought that I'd developed a nasty rash on my hand. (I'm a lefty)



Karin :bunny1:

I've never even tried a blotter. Maybe I should. Currently, I just do like Lauren Bacall.

"Just put your lips together...and blow."

When I'm in the middle of a thought that I'm scribbling down, following it by mere nano-seconds, trusting my subconscious forces to drag me along to great truths that will resolve all conflict in the world, invariably I'll hit mid-sentence, important thought to the whole whatever I'm writing, and also look at the corner of the page, where I've painted myself into. Stopping, blowing, waiting severes the weak connection I have with these developing thoughts and by the time I get to the next page, with the ink dried and all on the previous, the flow is gone. It's like I'm channelling, but with myself, and I can't stop.

Casual writing, correspondence, is different. What I have been doing, to maintain the flow, is just turn and if the wet smears, at least I have the thought running. A quick blot would not slow me down that much (as long as I had it carefully angled and ready to go, maybe nabbing it seconds before with my other hand, the one that's not doing any thinking.)

I'm always stealing breaks to write with my pens in the hospital - since I'm on my anesthesia rotation, I've been using some 4x4 gauze as make-shift blotters - they're not that great actually... and it really freaked out one of the nurses who saw blue spots on the gauze.

It was called "sand" but it wasn't sand as such, i.e. silicon dioxide. I can't remember the actual composition of the stuff, I'm thinking that it changed at some point too. But it wasn't sand. Sand will not absorb ink.


I was under the impression that the OP was referring to those paper egg cartons. They're gray and I think that they're a really cheap papier mache. Maybe something like that could be smashed up and flattened out and it might be worth trying.

I tend to like a wet line of ink, and I no longer blot. I used to years ago. I especially used to blot when I wrote with a dip pen. Luckily, I bought my blotters in about 1966, or 1967. I bought ten packs of white and pink blotter material and they came five or ten blotters to the pack. These were the type that you'd affix to those rocker blotters. I didn't know it when I bought them, but I was buying a lifetime supply!

Of course these days I don't use them, both because I like the wet line and want it to soak into the paper (this is non-feathering ink) and because I don't think so fast that I need to use them to get on to the next page anymore.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. Any fine powder will wick liquid by capillary action. I'll look around and get some better backing references.



Kurt H

They aren't the best blotters in the world, but overly feathery index cards work pretty well for small notebooks. I keep one in my moleskine, and when I turn a page or close it, I make sure it's where it can do the most good.