I finally got around to finishing my floral page in my art journal. In my last blog post I had created a helleborus flower as that was the only blooming flower in our garden. A few days later, additional flowers were blooming including miniature daffodils.
I’ve been taking reference pictures for future use. I do this as time flies by quickly and when I’m ready to sketch again, the flowering blooms have long expired.
Luckily, both my helleborus and daffodils are still blooming around our gardens. This morning I stepped outside to look at our miniature daffodils before I sketched the remaining flowers in my art journal.
I like adding the hazy and blurry colors in the background of my sketches. It gives me the feeling that there are other flowers in the background without adding any details.
Pens: Platinum Preppy 02 Extra Fine nib. Jinhao x159 Wine Red with Fine nib. TWSBI GOs with Stub 1.1 nibs.
Inks: Robert Oster Heart of Gold (shimmer), Blood Rose (shimmer), and African Gold. Van Dieman’s Ink Anna’s Hummingbird Wing (shimmer), KWZ/Galen Leather Prairie Green (shimmer), and DeAtramentis Document Grey.
I’ve been writing my Jinhao fountain pens dry. Literally, I would run out of ink while in the middle of writing a sentence. My x159 pens are lovely wet writers and I’ve also been using them for creating my pen & ink sketches.
My favorite pinky red ink color to sketch with is Blood Rose. Yes, it’s a shimmering ink. My Wine Red x159 has been filled with this lovely color since I received it and turns out to be on its third refill of the same color. This might be the perfect pen & ink combination for me.
In my black x159, I filled my pen with the lovely Prairie Green shimmering ink color. My shimmering inks have been flowing well in my Jinhao’s.
I’m finding Blood Rose and Prairie Green are two lovely colors that work well together and perfect for floral sketches. The inks react beautifully with water on my sketch paper and they create lovely washes of color.
For the last few weeks, I have seen some blooming beauties in our gardens. A pop of color here and there. The flowering colors range from white with green edges to a light green to a deep burgundy/purple.
I decided it was time to start sketching again. I created this loose sketch of a Helleborus flower in my art journal.
I used my Document Grey ink to sketch the outline of my flower. I used Blood Rose for the flower’s petals and Prairie Green for the leaves and stem. To create the subtle colors in the background, I wet the paper around the flower and I dropped in some color using my water brush. I was careful not to blend the colors together or I would end up with a muddy mix.
Since I’m sketching with lighter inky colors, I’m thinking about using Document Urban Grey to create the lighter color outlines of my floral sketches.
Prompt: Go outside and see what is blooming in your yard, at a park, or at your local garden center. Take a picture or two of the flower. Create a pen & ink sketch. Don’t worry about the details. Focus on the shape(s) of your flower and petals. Create another sketch using a different ink color for the flower.
Cleaning Note & Tip: When I’m refilling the same ink into the same pen, I do clean my pen before refilling. Especially, when I’m using shimmering inks. I place a towel under my pen (with feed facing up) and I use my soft toothbrush dipped in water and gently clean out the feed and the underside of the nib. I will dip my toothbrush several times into water and then onto my feed/nib. The towel underneath will pull the water and remaining sparkly particles out from the nib. I’m often amazed how much shimmering particles come out of the feed/nib.
No need to remove nib unit from pen. Showing placement on towel with small soft brush
Pens: Jinhao x159 Wine Red in gold trim with Fine nib. Jinhao x159 Black in silver trim with Fine nib. Platinum Preppy 02 Extra Fine nib.
Inks: Robert Oster Blood Rose (shimmer), KWZ & Galen Leather exclusive Prairie Green (shimmer), and DeAtramentis Document Grey.
Today’s Diamine Inkvent color is Olive Swirl. This is another chameleon ink with some green-gold-pink shimmers. From the online swatch samples there appears to be a dark brown sheen as well.
The bottom of T’s bottle shows off the shimmering colors of green, gold, and pink. Absolutely gorgeous!
Olive green is one of my favorite ink colors to use for journal writing and for my sketches. Naturally, I have too many swatches to show in a single picture. It would have been overwhelming to show the different variations of this earthy color.
I ended up selecting a few that represents a good range of personalities. Tea Time and Saguaro Green are very close colors, but slightly different from this angled view.
Brane and Prairie Green are shimmering inks.
It’s interesting to see how different and unique an olive green ink color can be.
Brane and Prairie Green are my favorite green shimmering ink colors. Brane has green and blue metallic shimmers. Prairie Green has gold and copper-like shimmers.
I would definitely add Olive Swirl with all it’s shimmering trio of colors to the top of my wish list.
Ink swatches: Colorverse Brane (shimmer). KWZ Ink/Galen Leather Prairie Green (shimmer). Ferris Wheel Press Peter Moss. Vista Inks Leyte. Robert Oster Tea Time and Saguaro Green.
I’ve been pulling out my fountain pens filled with shimmering inks and cleaning them out. A few have been in use since May and I thought it was time to rotate the colors out and try some new inks.
I used a 4″x6″ watercolor paper post card to create my swatch card. So far, this includes 19 inky colors I am currently using for this month. These inky colors reside in my TWSBIs, Pilot, Opus 88, Nahvalur, and Indy pens. That includes about a dozen TWSBI GOs.
I am still missing a few colors like a golden yellow which I will add to my currently inked collection in the next day or so.
I keep my swatch card with me in my art bag along with my fountain pens and inks. There are times when I forget what inky colors I have ready to go for my sketches or when I’m trying to find the right inky shade for a particular sketch.
Post Card: Tumuarta Watercolor Post Card 4″x6″ 140lb/300gsm cold press
Pens: turnt pen co “Grisham 13” in Peach Agate (Bob Dupras) with Fine nib. Pilot Custom 742 with Soft Fine <SF> nib. Nahvalur Original Plus in Melacara Purple with Stub nib.
I thought I was dealing with allergies last week which turned out to be a head cold that Hubby shared with me. I’m slowly feeling somewhat normal and I’m hoping my creative juices will come back this week.
This morning I decided to continue with swatching some inks colors from KWZ Inks. Oh wait. I’m back to swatching fountain pen inks instead of playing with my watercolors? Yes. Shifting gears for a few hours today. Plus swatching colors seem to be the most creative thing I feel like doing at this moment.
In my previous ink swatching posts, I’ve been using my Col-o-ring swatch cards for the last two years as my primary method for swatching colors. I love having the ability to swap and re-organize my cards around in the ring. I’ve also been playing with my ink colors in my fountain pen ink journal to see how the inks react to water.
In my journal, I used to just dabble ink on a page and take a water brush and swipe the color. There was no rhyme or reason to my method and I would end up with a mishmash of colors on a page.
A sample page from my ink journal
I thought I would bring some organization to my ink journal. Here’s what I came up with:
A sample page with my KWZ Inks and new swatching format
While I’m sharing my sample ink pages, I might as well share my thoughts on KWZ Inks. They have some beautiful ink colors. Amazing sheening and shading inks. As you can see from my samples, they are also wet inks.
I have to mention that KWZ Inks have a slight vanilla-ish odor. When I bought my first bottle last year, I was overwhelmed with the this scent in a pleasant way. After I filled my pen with ink, I looked forward to uncapping my pen and have this subtle scent surround me. Some folks might be ultra sensitive to this scent and I just want to share this bit of information.
Sheening and shading inks
With this new format, I can see the sheening and shading characteristics of each ink color.
KWZ Sheen Machine!
I gathered up my bottles of Jacques Herbin shimmering inks and created another swatch page. Jacques Herbin has the best shimmering inks. There I said it! I have not had any clogging issues with their shimmering inks in my pens. Their inks flow beautifully.
A sample page of my Jacques Herbin shimmering ink
The Vert Atlantide is my favorite color. It has gold and silver particles and that green color is gorgeous.
I wanted to add that I let this page dry completely. Then I remembered I needed to add the water wash. That’s why there are hard edges/lines in the samples below.
Showing just the right amount of shimmer particles
Beautiful intense colors
I wanted to mention that KWZ Inks and Jacques Herbin shimmering inks create some of the most beautiful and stunning color washes.
Two weeks ago, I had cleaned all of my Everyday Writer (EDW) fountain pens. It didn’t take long before I started to fill them again with different inks. This time it was mostly with shimmering inks.
The first (left) and last two pens (right) are filled with normal inks. The rest have shimmering inks.
Notice in the picture, I have eight EDW pens inked at one time. This is a personal restriction I have placed upon myself. Not to go overboard and have 30 EDW pens inked at one time. I used to do that when I first started out in this crazy rabbit hole. The thought of cleaning 30 pens was overwhelming. It took me awhile to clean 30 pens and at the same time I kept filling my pens with ink. The 30 pens would drop down to 20 and then back up to 30 again.
Last year I set a goal for myself to create good habits. One of them was to only have 10 EDW pens inked at one time. This of course did not include my pens that I use for my artwork. Change is good, right? So far, it looks like it’s working!
Documenting my EDW for future reference. Check out the shimmers!
For those of you following my RO Rose Gold Antiqua shimmering ink adventures, I have paired that ink with my TWSBI Diamond 580 RGII pen. For the second time, this ink has clogged my pen on Day #2. If you remember, my first pen that I paired with this ink clogged as well on Day #2. That was with the Platinum Procyon with a medium nib.
I’m now beyond Day #2 and my TWSBI and Rose Gold Antiqua ink are playing nicely together.
My TWSBI filled with Rose Gold Antiqua
Love my shimmers!
If you’ve noticed, I am no longer calling my currently inked pens EDCs or Everyday Carry. They are now my Everyday Writer or EDW pens.
Looks like I need to create a writing sample with all my currently inked pens I use strictly for my artwork. I better get to it!
Paper used: Rhodia #16 Paper Pad Blank. GLP Creations Journal with Tomoe River Paper Lined.
SusieG Studio 