Best Pen & Nibs For Calligraphy And Drawing

[guzh]

Hi!

I've used a fountain pen maybe once or twice. But I'm interested in learning calligraphy (italic, copperplate, uncial etc.)..

I would also be able to draw with the pen, and since I need different sized I guess a pen that has changeable nibs would be best. (because I have several needs I guess an allround pen is best)

 

So my question is, could someone please recommend some pens or what kind of pens fit my needs?

Should I buy a pen & nibs-set or should I buy nibs loose? and is it possible to use nibs of a different brand than the pen?

I'm norwegian, so I guess ebay or other places like that is the best/easiest place for me to get what I want, or what is your preferences?

 

I'm sorry for my lack of information and stupid questions XD

Thanks in advance!

 

Best regards,

Anders

Edited December 3, 2010 by guzh

[banyanleaf]

Dip pen for both. There are hundreds of different types of nibs and inks to suit your need. With dip pen, only your imagination is the limit.

[guzh]

Dip pen for both. There are hundreds of different types of nibs and inks to suit your need. With dip pen, only your imagination is the limit.

Hi, thanks for your answer!

I tried dip pens for a while and thought it could be a bit messy.. but I guess I'll try some more when I'm a bit more comfortable working with ink, so to begin with I thought I should try a fountain pen instead

[banyanleaf]

Try Esterbrook. There is a wonderful forum here on Esterbrook. Be be careful, they are very addictive because of the interchangeable nibs.

 

Here is one of the best website on Esterbrook:

 

http://www.esterbrook.net/index.shtml

 

I would recommend looking at the J series pens. The earlier series will cost more. For practical purpose, J series are very high quality and not very expensive. Pelikans are great but they will cost many times more than Esterbrook.

Edited December 3, 2010 by banyanleaf

[Pelifan]

I can see why you want to use a fountain pen, it's much easier. But the flexibility of dip pens make them the better alternative. Both when it comes to the range of nib shapes and sizes, and the inks and other stuff you can use. With dip pens you can use india ink and even watercolours or diluted gouache. And they're very cheep. It's worth the trouble getting used to them.

 

You can also easily adjust the flow on them, if you use nibs with those little ink reservoirs (looks like a little clamp sliding over the nib). Just slide them down towards the nib for wetter flow, away from for drier.

 

But it also depends on the kind of calligraphy you want to do. Just writing plain text, one size for the text and perhaps one more for headers? Then FP:s might be a good alternative. There are cheap calligraphy sets from different firms, i think Pilot does them for example. Think they're called "Parallell Pen" or something like it, sold in sets with different nibs. Ink cartridges are available in a few different colours.

[Pelifan]

A PS: you might wanna check out the "Penmanship" section of these forums. There are usually lots of discussions about calligraphy, and some very skilled practitioners post their work and tips there.

 

Good luck!

[cooltouch]

I'm in the same boat as you, guzh. In fact, I discovered this site a few days ago when I was out on the web searching for more info on pens used for pen-and-ink drawing and calligraphy.

 

I have an assortment of old dip pen nibs that I picked up as I was collecting fountain pens years ago, and have played around with them some, and really wasn't very impressed with them, so I went down to the art supply store the other day and bought a couple more. These worked better than the ones I already had, but they will take some getting used to.

 

The way I see it, the main advantages to dip pens are there is a really big variety of nib shapes and they are cheap. The two nibs I bought the other day cost me $2.29. And if you pay attention to what you're doing, using them need not involve making a mess.

 

The disadvantages I found were that often they would not hold much ink at all, requiring many dips to complete something simple, and that they were basically good for strokes in a single direction only. These were flexible fine point nibs and I selected them so I could draw hatch lines of varying thickness by just altering the amount of pressure I exerted. Well, they're fine as long as I'm using them to draw straight lines, but they dig into the paper if I try a curve. And the other nibs I have that will handle curves are not so fine, so I'll have to go and get some nibs that are fine point but have ball tips of some sort before I can draw curves.

 

So far, I haven't run into these same limitations with fountain pens. Even flexible fine points allow me to deviate from straight lines without the nib digging into the paper.

 

I agree with Banyanleaf that Esterbrooks might just be a good choice for you. The J series are not particularly expensive and there are many different nibs that were made for these pens, including a selection of calligraphy nibs made by Osmiroid. Check out this video of a guy using an Esterbrook with 9048 nib:

 

[RMN]

Hi Guzh

 

I am not an expert on calligraphy, but I also would like to do "something" in that field.

I have been looking around in that area for a while, so maybe I can give some directions.

 

For calligraphy of course you need to be able to produce nice lines, you will need a good coordination from eye to hand.

 

But calligraphy mostly also is about line-variation, and that is where you are asking about.

 

Basically there are two ways to produce line-variation:

 

1: by opening the distance between the tines of the pen, the further apart, the broader the line. This is the basis of Copperplating. You will need a very flexible nib for that. These flex-nibs (some call them "wet noodles") are seldom found in modern pens. Modern nibs are stiffer, on average, possibly because people are used to writing with pressure bacause of the way you have to write with a ballpointpen. You'll have to look around for a vintage pen with a suitable nib. There are several brands, older Watermans, Esterbrooks etc. But a dip-pen is also a possiblity, as stated, it is cheap and fairly easy to come by as opposed to vintage pens.

 

2: by using a different shaped nib, like a stub or italic nib. Normally the iridium point of a nib is a round ball. This produces the same linewidth in every direction. But if you shape the iridium like a rectangle, you get a wider or thinner line depending in which direction you move.

There are several FP-brands that offer factory subs or italics. But you will have to order them as most shops won't have them on stock.

An other possibility is to have a normal nib ground into a italic by a nibmeister. You will have to send your pen to one of them.

Again, an easy possibility is to use a dip pen. And there are nice starter-sets by several brands where you get a FP with several sizes of italic nibs for around $50 (including Lamy and Sheaffer)

 

If you want to read further, go to the website of one of the nibmasters, like Richard Binder. http://www.richardspens.com/

 

 

D.ick

[Rena]

A PS: you might wanna check out the "Penmanship" section of these forums. There are usually lots of discussions about calligraphy, and some very skilled practitioners post their work and tips there.

 

Good luck!

 

I agree. There's lots of information on tools and technique in the Penmanship forum here at FPN. Here is a link to a particular set of posts you may find useful. In the first post, you will find links to Caliken's videos on various calligraphy scripts. His last post will tell which pen and nib he used in each video. There is a vast difference in the type of pen you will use for Copperplate and the one you will use for Uncial, so one pen will not suffice if your interest is as broad as you indicate. Have fun!

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/122092-calligraphy-videos/page__view__findpost__p__1209457

[guzh]

Thanks alot for your replies! ;D

 

I got a hold of a Esterbrook J yesterday! And can't wait to try it out!

As I've only used a fountain pen perhaps twice before, I'm quite new to this game, so I have some questions XD

What kind of ink can I use, and is it some kind of ink I must stay away from? I don´t want to break the pen by using a ink I shouldn't use..

 

What kind of nibs would work best for calligraphy? Do you have any suggestions, if so which ones?

 

Thanks again!

 

Best regards,

Anders

[cooltouch]

Hey Anders,

 

Yuo're going to get suggestions for all sorts of inks to use. There are many. I suspect that most of the good ones should be fine. But for starters, one of the most reasonably priced and easiest to find inks is Parker Quink. I've only seen it in black, but I'm guessing its available in other colors. But Quink is not an indelible ink, so if that's important to you, then you might want to try one of the brands that offers an indelible ink, like Noodlers for example.

 

First though, you need to make sure your pen will take the ink.. Sounds ike you don't have it yet? When you get a hold of it, make sure the ink sac is still good. An ink sac tends to dry out over time and when this happens it is no good anymore and will have to be replaced. This is fairly common with older pens, like Esterbrooks.

[guzh]

Hey Anders,

 

Yuo're going to get suggestions for all sorts of inks to use. There are many. I suspect that most of the good ones should be fine. But for starters, one of the most reasonably priced and easiest to find inks is Parker Quink. I've only seen it in black, but I'm guessing its available in other colors. But Quink is not an indelible ink, so if that's important to you, then you might want to try one of the brands that offers an indelible ink, like Noodlers for example.

 

First though, you need to make sure your pen will take the ink.. Sounds ike you don't have it yet? When you get a hold of it, make sure the ink sac is still good. An ink sac tends to dry out over time and when this happens it is no good anymore and will have to be replaced. This is fairly common with older pens, like Esterbrooks.

Thank you for your reply

 

I think it would be great with both light resistant and not, and the same with waterproof ink. It's not necessary to use light resistant if I'm not going to use it for display. And waterproof and non-waterproof would give different effects. So I'm interested in all kind of ink, but it would be great to know if there is some kind of ink that I should stay away from, because it could kill my pen!

 

That's right, I don't have the pen yet. I bought it on ebay, so I guess I have it in about 2 weeks or so!

The pen has been water-tested so I guess it works fine. however any suggestions where I could buy spare-parts if needed?

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thanks alot for your replies! ;D

 

I got a hold of a Esterbrook J yesterday! And can't wait to try it out!

As I've only used a fountain pen perhaps twice before, I'm quite new to this game, so I have some questions XD

What kind of ink can I use, and is it some kind of ink I must stay away from? I don´t want to break the pen by using a ink I shouldn't use..

 

What kind of nibs would work best for calligraphy? Do you have any suggestions, if so which ones?

 

Thanks again!

 

Best regards,

Anders

 

There are threads on how to hold a fountain pen properly.

It makes a big difference. I held one wrong for 50 years.

[cooltouch]

The pen has been water-tested so I guess it works fine. however any suggestions where I could buy spare-parts if needed?

 

Check the Esterbrook forum here for parts resources and more info on Esterbrooks in general, or post a note in the 'parts and tools' sub-forum of the Classifieds and Market Watch forum for specific parts requests.