SusieG Studio

We started the new year with a fun adventure and sadly I did not have the urge to sketch anything. This adventure was mostly R&R and slowing down our pace. I’ve taken lots of pictures of the wildlife we’ve seen using my smartphone and mostly my DSLR camera. I did an “ooooopsie” and forgot to bring my card reader and so my pictures still live in my DSLR instead of my laptop. Stay tuned for my “wildlife” blog post.

In the meantime, I brought along a few of my fountain pens in Extra Fine, Medium, and Omniflex nibs. In the early morning hours and with coffee in hand, I found time to enjoy my fountains pens and to write about our adventures.

When I write about our travel adventures, my current journal of choice is from Lochby. It’s A5 size with 72 pages of writing bliss on Tomoe River paper. It has 68gsm paper and comes in different formats such as dot grid, ruled, grid, planner, and plain. From the above picture, I’m using a vinyl cover to protect my journal. I like this combination as it provides me with a thin journal that I can easily slip into my camera bag or slim messenger bag and write on the go.

I’ve been using my EF nibs for writing in my adventure journal. I’m glad I remembered to bring them along. I really do enjoy writing with the finer nibs. When I started my fountain pen adventures back in 2019, the pens with EF nibs were my first choice. That brought back fond memories as I researched and experimented with different pen brands and nib sizes. I have my friend “M” to thank for letting me try out her pens.

There’s a new pen I received for Christmas from my Hubby. It’s a Benu Astrogem in Midas. There are darkish swirls of olive green and dark swirls of raspberry colors with golden shimmering pieces throughout the pen. This was purchased at the DC Pen Show back in August from Frank at Federalist Pens and Paper and hubby did a nice job hiding the box and forgetting about it.

I really enjoy writing with this Astrogem model. In my hand, it feels a bit scaled down from my other Benu Euphoria model. Mostly likely because the Astrogem has a bit more shape and softer edges along the pen cap and body.

This is a lovely wet medium nib that writes effortlessly across the paper. I’m liking this pen shape and it fits nicely in my hand while I’m writing.

I purposely selected different brand pens from my fountain pen collection. Two of them I haven’t put into rotation for a few years. They are my Lamy Studio and TWSBI Diamond 580 ALR.

I changed out my regular Lamy nib for a 14kt Extra Fine nib. I also swapped out the metal section for a rubber section. The rubber section does prevent me from turning my pen while I’m writing. Also, it just feels better to grip rubber versus metal. The metal was always slipping between my fingers.

The Lamy 14kt EF nib writes like a dream. It’s a wet nib that writes between a Western Fine and Medium nib.

I have to mention, the grip on the Studio is a different beast and so I have the tendency to tighten my grip while holding the smooth & bulbuous section. I have to remember to hold my pen with a lighter grip.

Do you remember when I showed a picture (previous post) of my jar full of pen sections?

Just for fun, I wanted to share what my Viva paper towels looked like after soaking up the inks from my pens.

Here are my swatch cards that represent the ink I’m currently using in my pens. I always enjoy seeing the underlying colors on my swatches.

I’m including a last minute picture of my writing samples from my currently inked fountain pens. I normally used Melon Tea for my pen & ink wash sketches. I enjoyed using this lovely color for writing in my journals. Oh and my TWSBI is a tank. The EF nib writes beautifully and I don’t have to worry about running out of ink.

As you can see from my pictures and previous fountain pen blog posts, I’m still enjoying my Conklin 1898 and my Pilot Kakuno. They are constantly used and in my fountain pen rotation. My fave pen & ink & nib combinations.

Fountain Pens:

• TWSBI Diamond 580 with EF nib filled with Robert Oster Melon Tea
• Lamy Studio with 14kt EF nib filled with Robert Oster Thunderstorm
• Pilot Kakuno (pink) with Medium nib filled with Robert Oster Blood Rose (shimmer)
• Benu Astrogem Midas with Medium nib filled with Robert Oster Sydney Darling Harbour
• Conklin 1898 with Omniflex nib filled with Robert Oster Sydney Lavender