A Prelude of Good Things to Come

In preparation of my upcoming ink and notebook reviews, I started cleaning several of my pens last night. More pens were cleaned this morning and all six of them will be filled with fresh inks in the days to come.

Cleaned pens left overnight to dry.

Set on left is the disassembled Parker Rialto that used to be filled with Caran d'Ache Saffron, and soon to be inked with Diamine Burnt Sienna. I love this pen and its medium nib and the fact that its nib section can be taken apart: nib and feed can pulled out of the nib section and rinsed thoroughly with water. No long soaking time or flushing of stubborn ink stuck in the feed and underside of the nib.

The middle set has the parts of the Colibri pen, my first pen with a two-toned nib that writes like heaven. Very smooth, and used to be filled with Aurora Blue, and soon will get a transfusion of Diamine Turquoise. It didn't take long to flush out old ink from its nib section.

Last set on right belongs to Mary-Ann, the Retro 51 Scripmaster II Series pen that I just adore, love, and cherish. Who wouldn't? It was filled only with Waterman South Sea Blue since I got it in April, and now will be inked with J. Herbin Orange Indien.

Of course my ink reviews will include my dabbling into calligraphy, and there is something new that I shall use for that aside from my Schneider Creativ and Lamy Joy pens - an old set of Manuscript calligraphy pens that I got from a thrift store for PhP50 a year ago. The pen was in a blister pack with 2 nibs and a converter, but I only got to use the converter later on. I was disappointed at the nibs when I used them because they were scratchy and hard starting. But I wasn't into calligraphy then. I saw the pen in my office drawer today and tried to do some calligraphy strokes. I was so surprised at how the 2.3 nib wrote. Not smooth, in fact the nib tip is so sharp it can cut through my skin. But the letters I wrote with it were so beautifully impressive! Now I have three sets of calligraphy pens. :) But wait! I also have a Brause set with six nibs! Six! I'll get on them as soon as I finish my final exams on the 19th. After that, it's purely paper, ink, and pen bliss for me. :)

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Quo Vadis Habana Notebook: A Review

Here is the Quo Vadis Habana notebook from the kind people at Exaclair, Inc.

Those close to me know how much I love pens and notebooks. I always have a lot of both – in my backpack, on my office table, on my work table at home; even my closet has pens and notebooks inside! I think most of my backpack’s weight is not because of my laptop and its accessories but because it’s always full of pens and notebooks. And like most notebook enthusiasts, I currently have a number of notebooks in use – and four are in my bag. One of them is a black 6”×9” Quo Vadis Habana notebook.

The Quo Vadis Habana notebook.

Karen Doherty of Exaclair, Inc. has kindly sent me a large Quo Vadis Habana notebook in September. I kept my Quo Vadis Habana in its plastic wrap until I was ready to write the review because I was scared of any damage or dirt getting in the notebook. The first thing I did when I took out the plastic wrap was to smell the Habana's paper. Oh, yes I did that! I always do that to my notebooks, especially the newly opened ones. I do that because I love the smell of new paper, and partly because I also want to assess its quality. And yes, nothing beats the sweet smell of clean, new, non-acidic paper!

The Habana's bright white pages stay flat when the notebook is open.

The Quo Vadis Habana’s cover is made of black leatherette that gives it a subtle elegance. Wrapped in this leatherette is a thick but flexible board. I’m sure one can easily bend the covers, but I won’t risk doing that to my notebook. As I ran my fingers on the Habana’s front and back covers, it felt soft and smooth. The pressed QV logo on the front’s lower right corner and at the back signifies quality to me. My work background tells me these logos come from high quality leather pressing/embossing.

Elegant pressed QV logos on the Habana's front and back covers.

Inside the Quo Vadis Habana notebook are 80 sheets of acid- and chlorine-free, bright white, premium 90g Clairefontaine paper. Think of all that paper goodness! I am so amazed with the brilliant white pages and their smoothness. The lines are widely-spaced, and this is good news for me because of my fondness for wide strokes when writing. The notebook’s pages have round corners, and for me, this is a thoughtful gesture from QV for their notebooks’ users because sharp page corners not only tend to curl up, they can also cut into people’s palms.

Round page corners on the Habana's pages.

The Quo Vadis Habana notebook’s binding is another plus for this notebook, because it allows the pages to stay flat on their own while the notebook is open. This is shown in the photo above of the open notebook.

Notebook abuse? Nah. It was only a test that the Habana gracefully passed.

Finally, we come to the best part: the writing samples!

Because all the reviews raved on the Quo Vadis Habana’s ability to hold fountain pen inks, I tried all my wet nibs on it. I wrote with all my italic/calligraphy pens, some o f my medium nibs and two of my wet fines. The results? Amazing!

I started write-testing the Quo Vadis Habana notebook using my italic nibs. Then I used three Parkers inked with highly saturated inks: Private Reserve Copper Burst and Avacado. Lastly, I wrote with my other inked pens, starting with my Retro 51, which is a wet medium inked with a wet ink: Waterman South Sea Blue. I tested my other mediums, the Parker Rialto and all three Schneider Base pens, the first filled with CdA Saffron and the others with either J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche or Rouge Opera. I also tried the bold Pilot 78G and two plastic pens I got from Daiso, both with scratchy nibs but gives out very wet ink flow. All writing samples looked beautifully, all ink samples dried fast, and because of the Habana’s white paper, the colors all looked so bright! My momentary surprise was cut short when I remembered I had to check the Habana for two more things: feathering and bleed. There is absolutely no feathering on the Habana from all the pens and ink colors I used. Hurray! Bleed? It’s almost as if I held my breath as I turned the page over so I could check for bleed. And… voila! Absolutely, definitely, certainly no bleed at all! Hurray! This means I can forever use a fountain pen to write on my Habana notebook, right?

Pen and ink combinations

Schneider Creativ 1.5mm italic nib and PR Avacado; Lamy Joy 1.5mm nib and CdA Saffron.

Lamy Vista (1.9mm) with Bleu Pervenche, Lamy Safari (1.1mm) with Rouge Opera and Lamy Joy (1.5mm) with CdA Saffron.

3 Parkers: Parker 25 (M) and Parker Jotter (M) with PR Copper Burst, and Parker Vector (wet F) with PR Avacado.

The rest of all the pens and inks I tested on the Habana.

But, wait! I’m surely happy and excited to use the Quo Vadis Habana notebook for journaling, but there are two things I hope the people behind QV will consider: the elastic closure and the page marker ribbon.

The elastic closure for me seems too narrow for this notebook size. Some users may like thinner bands such as the one on the large Quo Vadis Habana notebook, but I would have liked mine to be a little wider. Perhaps this size is good for smaller notebooks, but for a 6”×9” leather-covered journal, it looks a bit awkward for me.

I feel the same for the Quo Vadis Habana notebook’s page marker ribbon: it is too narrow/thin, and too short for the 9” page size. The ribbon is a bit short for me that I cannot tie its end to prevent fraying or I will shorten it even more. But that’s just me, and that doesn’t mean I love the Habana less. :)

The Habana's page marker ribbon which I feel is too thin and narrow. Again, that's just me! :)

The Quo Vadis Habana is a great notebook, and probably the best I’ve ever tried. It’s already friends with my fountain pens, has excellent paper, looks great, what more could I ask for? (Just a wider elastic band and longer page marker ribbon. LOL!) Perhaps a notebook for each available color? Or one of each size? The Habana is available in four colors: black, which is the one being reviewed here; blue, red, and taupe; and in two sizes: large (6"×9", with 80 sheets of 90g paper), and pocket (4"×6", with 96 sheets of 64g paper). Hmmm... Lots of notebooks to choose from! More information about Quo Vadis Habana notebooks is available at the QV site.

Lastly, I’d like to give Mr. Pythagoras a bit of a show-off here.

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Happy Halloween!

I have always wanted to write something for Halloween but didn’t know for sure what to blog about. For an Addams Family fan and an aspiring mortician like I am, it should be a comfortable topic, but I'm still left scrounging for ideas. I don’t have happy childhood trick or treat memories to write, or incredible Halloween parties to rave about. I have never even put on a Halloween costume or carved a pumpkin. But a Halloween post must be written and so here is one.

Before proceeding to read the rest, a warning should be made that this is an incredibly 'orange' post, but definitely has nothing to do with Halloween except that it is filled with a lot of 'orange' stuff. The idea for this post came to me after I received my first Rhodia notepad, and while I was waiting to get my Caran d'Ache Saffron ink from Singapore to ink two of my orange looking pens, a laque copper NOS Parker Rialto with a medium nib, and a copper Esterbrook SJ fitted with a 1551 firm medium nib.

Now let's get the reviews done. :)

Rhodia No. 14

I got this staple-bound Rhodia notepad No. 14 as part of Exaclair's Bastille Day giveaway in July. I was surprised and happy to find other Exaclair products in the package, apart from the two bottles of J. Herbin inks they promised to send. When I took the notepad out of the envelope, it wasn't exactly love at first sight for me. Because of its orange covers. :) I preferred the Clairefontaine spiral-bound notebooks and Quo Vadis Habana that went in the package. I tried the Rhodia when the Saffron ink arrived, and I instantly fell in love with it.

For my Halloween post, I thought I'd draw bats on my Rhodia pad. Seen here with two of my Tomica toys. I got orange toys, too! :)

The No. 14 notepad measures 4.3 × 6.7 inches, and has 80 sheets of 80gsm high-grade vellum paper. The paper on Rhodia pads is very smooth, and it's a pleasure to write on it. The one I got is the lined version, and it is perfectly resistant to ink feathering and bleed, the two common problems faced by fountain pen users. The pages are microperforated so it's easy to tear a page off as needed. Rhodia notepads' covers have an almost water resistant, shiny, smooth paper/board material. I had difficulty drawing the bats using an ultrafine retractable Sharpie - the ink erases itself! :) I'd like to guess that the ink from my Sharpie pen simply dries up on the paper's surface instead of being absorbed by the paper. The front cover is scored on the exact places where they will be creased due to repeated use. The back cover has a thicker chipboard aside from the orange cover, and this gives excellent support when writing.

Writing on the Rhodia notepad is an experience. The smoothness of the paper is overwhelming. Below are writing samples of my inked pens, most of which come with medium nibs letting off wet and wide strokes.

It will always be a joy to write on Rhodia notepads. And to claim my full ownership of this little gem of a notebok, I wrote this on its first page, using an orange-colored ink.

Pens: Esterbrook and Parker

Again, this is an orange-themed post, so here are two copper-colored pens from my collection.

Pen No. 1: Esterbrook SJ with a firm medium 1551 nib.

Esterbrook pens are a fascination not only to me, but for a lot of other fountain pen enthusiasts. My Estie (that's their nickname) is a transitional pen and a double jewel demi (SJ). According to the site http://www.esterbrook.net/j3.shtml, the double jewel models came out around 1948 and were produced in vast quantities, with many showing up in the wild with perfectly pliable sacs and in perfect writing condition.

My copper Estie is from fellow Pinoy FP collector Cindy Trinidad. It has a firm medium nib, that I love but which has a remarkable scratch that almost broke my heart until I realized I must align the pen at a certain angle to comfortably write and get rid of the scratch. It writes very well in that angle, and it's among my favorite writers now. :)

Pen No. 2: Laque copper Parker Rialto with a 23k gold plated medium nib.

How do I call this pen? I got it from an office supply store in San Pablo for a price way, way below its current worth. This pen, together with a matte navy Rialto and silver Place Vendome 88 were in the glass shelves of that store since it opened business in the late 90s. I've always seen the pens but never tried them, but once when I was already into FP collecting, I asked the irritated sales clerk if I could try them, and she let me hold the pens for a while. The laque copper Rialto with the 23k gold-plated nib won my heart, but not my purse. Every weekend after that, whenever I have the chance, I'll pass by the store and look at the pens. Until that one Sunday when the store manager asked me if I'd like to buy the pens. She said she's seen me a couple of times looking at the pens, and since they've been sitting there gathering dust for the longest time, the store will give me a discounted price. Oh, boy. That afternoon, I went home with an NOS Parker Rialto.

It took me months to use the pen because I waited for any orange-colored ink to fill it with. When that opportunity came, oh, wow. The pen's medium nib is just so smooth, it's like writing with the softest butter in the world! The barrel's laque finish is excellent, and its 23k gold plated trim doesn't look cheap to me, contrary to what some people say. And though some frown at the Rialto for being a 'spruced up' Vector, I cannot find anything bad to say about this pen, except for its snap-on closure which like the Vector may wear off with time and use.

This pen is a dream come true for me. Not only it is a valuable addition to my collection, it is also a great reminder that, after all, dreams do come true.


Caran d'Ache Saffron Ink

The first time I saw bottles of Caran d'Ache inks was during my second pen meet last March. Leigh Reyes brought a couple of bottles of CdA inks and some of the pens I tried had Caribbean Sea and Saffron in them. I lusted over them since then and when C! Magazine EIC Carl Cunanan went to Aesthetic Bay last month, he kindly bought a bottle of Saffron for me, sent the bottle through our Makati office, in a black Borders bag filled with copies of their swank and hip and cool magazines. :)

Another dream come true for me: Caran d'Ache Saffron. Orange ink!!!

CdA Saffron is a beautiful orange ink. It's a happy orange color, and yet doesn't hurt the eyes when a page written with it is read. The tints of bright yellow, orange and red of the ink really looks like dried saffron stigmas dissolving in hot water. CdA Saffron reminds me of summer sunsets, of flames in my father's furnace at home and of ripe, glossy clementines.

This ink has an excellent flow, and I didn't have any problem with all four pens I tried using it. It dries fast and doesn't stain the converters of my Lamy Joy pens. On the Rhodia notepad, there was no feathering and bleed through at all. CdA Saffron is part of Caran d'Ache's nine-color Colors of the Earth line of products. CdA inks comes only in bottles, no cartridges, and a bottle contains 30ml of ink.

Here is a writing sample of CdA Saffron using all the nib sizes on my Lamy Joy set. Paper is Kokuyo loose leaf, very fountain pen friendly, very sturdy paper. (Click on the image for a larger view.)

And so ends my orange reviews. I didn't like orange before, never liked bright colors. But notebooks and inks and pens changed all that. Thanks to Rhodia, Esterbrook, Parker and Caran d'Ache, I see orange differently now. :)

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P for Preppy; P for Petit

... Or P for Platinum; P for Pilot.

They say that a newbie's collection is forever incomplete without a Platinum Preppy or a Pilot Petit. I drooled over them because they're really colorful pens. But though I want them so badly, I could not have any because they're not available here.

Pens uncapped. 0.3/Fine Platinum Preppy Blue Black. (Preppy pens are very unique - their nibs are colored as their ink colors!) Fine Pilot Petit with purple ink. (Petit pens, on the hand, have barrel and cap color accents according to their inks!)

When I started my collection, I got a couple of inexpensive plastic pens, including the colorful Schneider Zippis and M&G Joy Box. But the talk about ED'd Preppies and colorful Petits continued to haunt me.

Nibs up close.

Sometime in early September, I had a conversation with a pen seller from Taiwan, and after exchanging a series of email messages, two pens were sent on their way to me. Hurray!

Writing samples of the two pens. Better views below.

I got the pens in a couple of days and I was very, very surprised at the Preppy. It wrote very, very smoothly and despite bearing a fine nib, wrote as comfortably as my medium-nibbed pens. But the biggest and most awesome surprise with the Preppy is that, of all the pens I've tried on my Moleskine notebook, this one has the least bleed through! It actually doesn't have a remarkable bleed through, and the writing on the paper's backside is still visible and comfortable to read.

Writing sample of the Platinum Preppy, blue black ink, fine nib.

The Petit, though did not fare as well as the Preppy did. I was very excited about it because it is purple and has purple ink, but not only did it show excessive bleed through in my Moleskine and on most papers, it had bad feathering issues, too. A page written with it is somewhat difficult to read, and writing on backside is out of the question. Both sides written with it would be difficult to read. Another feature of this pen that I am uncomfortable with is its length. I am not used to posting my pens as I write, but it becomes necessary to post this one to comfortably write. Despite all these, I still love my Petit. It's a cool pen to carry around, not to mention that it's got purple ink. I'm dying to get my hands on any purple ink, and if this is the closest I can get to purple, then so be it. *Wink.*

Sample sample of Pilot Petit, purple ink, fine nib.

There. Two pens. Great members of my newbie stash. Great pieces to lend to my nieces when they like to tinker with my pens. :) 

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B is for Bold

And we're now back to regular programming... Err, pens. Yes, we're back to the topic of pens.

As a newbie FP collector, I read (and heard) a lot about Pilot 78Gs as being excellent starter pens. I thought the pens looked simple and unpretentious but I liked that because it made them look classy and neat.

During my first pen meet, I saw my fellow Pinoy fountain pen collectors getting their 78Gs from Sir Butch Dalisay who brought a couple of the pens for them from his Shanghai trip (I got a black Hero 616 from that giveaway, though). And then I read about 78Gs from the FPN forums and good reviews from a lot of pen and paper blogs, but the best are from my good friend Tom and Paul David Krishnan's Phase Ignition.

My Pilot 78G B rests on the rim of my Cusco, Peru shotglass. Another opportunity to mix the stuff I love to hoard: pens and shotglasses. :)

After months of waiting, I made it to Cosmos Bazaar in Binondo, a store recommended by Pidoy Velez, another Pinoy FP collector, and found a couple of 78Gs with medium and fine nibs among a vast selection of other Pilot pens. Typical hoarder that I am, I bought all available colors with medium nibs: black, teal, green. A medium maroon was not in stock so I wasn't able to complete the four-color set, but that's okay. I inked the black pen as soon as I got home, and I was disappointed that despite being a medium, I was not satisfied with how it wrote. I realized that in nib language, Japanese medium becomes a Western fine (or even extra fine). I don't have anything against that, a lot of FP users prefer fine or extra fine nibs, but I am a medium nib user. I always find my writing to be uncomfortably ugly when I use thin nibs. I want wide strokes using broad, bold and wet nibs.

I knew Pilot 78Gs are also available with broad/bold (B) and double broad/bold (BB) nib, yet I couldn't possibly think of a way of getting one. But I had to get one. It's amazing that while chatting with Tom one time, I asked him if he happened to have a 78G with a B nib. And he has! :) Tom kindly sent the pen to me right away. Hurray! Applause!

The black broad/bold 78G did not look any different from the black medium pen I inked earlier, except for its nib. The pen is made of plastic, yes, but still looked classy to me. I don't mind the gold-plated metal clip and the two gold bands near the cap rim. Who cares? I got a classy pen that writes smoothly and that's all that's important, I guess.

The Pilot 78G B. Above: Barrel with the Pilot sticker on, and section with the converter. Below: the pen's cap and barrel.

The name Pilot is imprinted downwards on the clip, and Japan is printed on the back side of the cap, breaking the wider of the two gold bands. The nib is almost a stub, and looking at it through a 10x loupe shows its tines properly aligned. This pen, like the ones before it, has an aerometric filling system, but further reading says it can also be inked using international cartridges. The pen is very light owing to its plastic body, and that makes it easy to hold when writing. Cleaning it is a breeze because the nib assembly can be removed from the section with a slight but firm tug. (Thanks to John Raymond Lim and Mona Caccam for the useful information.)

The section when I fully diassembled it. The pen part on top is the converter. Parts below, from left: nib, feed, and section barell.

Oh, what more can I say about this great pen? I'm happy to have it now that I'm learning to write italic and script. Below is a writing sample using the broad/bold/stub 78G inked with Lamy Black.

And again, as my small token of gratitude for the help extended to me so I can get and enjoy this pen, here's to you, Tom! :)

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For Now, It's Siku for I

I'm back to my first love: toy fire trucks! I'm not leaving out pens and inks and notebooks, no. I just want to go back to my previous fascination before I got so enamored with fountain pens, inks, and notebooks. It's a coincidence, perhaps, that my treasure of fountain pens and toys come from the same places: Japan and Germany.

I love fire trucks. Real fire trucks, toy fire trucks, it doesn't matter - as long as they are fire trucks. I'm not sure what it is, but there is something about a big, red truck with sirens and flashing lights that always fascinates me. I tried to get my hands on a remote/radio controlled fire truck, but that plan did not work, and I was left wanting and pinning for a red toy truck. Until I found a couple of small, shiny, die-cast models called Tomicas. Tomicas are die-cast toy vehicles that are produced by Japan's Takara Tomy Company.

I bought a lot of Tomica trucks, not only the fire trucks, but also those of the construction, trucking, and farming series. I even got myself taxis and police cars. Other toys caught my fancy, like the Fire Saver from Matchbox's 50th Birthday, part of the 9-toy package I got from Leo Sajonas sometime last year. And then there's Siku.

I have always wanted to add European toy fire trucks into my collection. And research pointed me to Siku, which has, more or less, similar selection to that of Tomica's. I've seen them in toy stores, but couldn't get them because I didn't like trucks that are bigger and larger in size than my Tomica trucks. But Virra Mall's Toy Kingdom made me a very happy collector when I found out that their Siku selection now includes the Siku Super Series. Hurray!

And now, here are my Siku toys.

Here is Siku No. 1068, a Unimog fire engine, scaled at 1:87. It is cast in metal, and its high-quality design has fine detail engraving. This piece has been offered since 2006, but was only available here in the Philippines last year.

This is Siku No. 1345, a 4x4 version of the Panther airfield water cannon by Rosenbauer. It is designed for use at smaller airports, with the No. 1889 scaled at 1:87 meant for big airport action. Introduced in July 2009, I'm very happy to get it here now.

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Inks on Review: J. Herbin Rouge Opera and Bleu Pervenche

When I started using a fountain pen, I only had one ink color in mind: black. After I found a bottle of old washable black Parker Quink at a brick and mortar shop here in Los Banos, it worked fine for me. The fine-nibbed maroon Parker Vector and bottle of Quink worked okay for a long time. Until I found a bottle of Quink Blue-Black in a box of sale items at an NBS branch. It was an important discovery for me, one that opened up to a huge Pandora’s box of endless possibilities in the world of fountain pens.

These endless possibilities include inks, ink colors, and ink brands. I wanted to learn more about them and so I read. And read. And read more. As I read more, I learned more. As I learned more, I began to want to own more pens, and inks, and more ink colors…

While blog hopping last July, I read somewhere that Exaclair, the exclusive distributor of Clairefontaine, Rhodia, Quo Vadis, G. Lalo, Exacompta and J. Herbin products in North America is giving away inks for review in celebration of Bastille Day on July 14. That is how I got these two bottles of wonderful J. Herbin inks. Though it took me longer than Odysseus to get these inks, the wait is worth every second of it. (The story about the Exaclair packages is here.)

When I sent the email to Exaclair, I did as they said. I chose one red ink and one blue ink. I was hoping to get the most coveted J. Herbin orange ink, Orange Indien, but I kept by the rules. I was torn between Rouille D’Ancre and Rouge Opera for my bottle of red; and between Bleu Azure and Bleu Pervenche for my blue ink. I finally settled on Rouge Opera as my red, because it looked so blooming and alive; and Bleu Pervenche for my blue because it’s a turquoise, and yet looked solid and strong.

And now, the reviews.

J. Herbin Rouge Opera

Did I say this ink looked blooming and alive? Well, it is. When I got the first package that Exaclair's VP for Marketing Karen Doherty sent me, Rouge Opera was the first bottle I opened. I'm not one to smell inks, but the scent of Rouge Opera caught me by surprise. It's like taking in the scent of wild flowers and that makes it even better to use. I filled one of my Schneider Base pens with this ink and tried it on my Moleskine. Uh-oh. In my excitement to try the ink, I forgot that Molie paper is the big time ink sucker. I then tried it on my Scribe using my Lamy Joy’s 1.5mm italic nib on my white Safari. It was amazing. It was beautiful. Rouge Opera clearly shows off the beauty of its shading and color when used on pens with broad nibs.

Rouge Opera is my first pink fountain pen ink. It is a lovely pink that leans towards dark fuchsia and burnt red. Though it shows more traces of red, I know that I can use it for everyday writing because it is not as bright and glaring as other red or pink inks. While wet, it has a certain sheen which gives it a glossy, slick appearance. When it has dried, it loses the gloss, but retains the same color intensity. The shading is very evident, especially when used with broader nibs, and I like that with my inks. While I’m more of a blue and black ink user, this pink ink is a keeper on my stash.

J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche

My all-time ink favorite is Waterman South Sea Blue. It’s an attractive turquoise ink that is wet and friendly to all of my pens. Then Bleu Pervenche comes along. I filled another Schneider Base with this ink as soon as I opened the bottle and tried it on the Scribe. Wonderful. The next pen I tried was my new Lamy Vista with my Lamy Joy’s 1.1mm italic nib. It was magnificent. It was beautiful.

Bleu Pervenche is my not my first blue or turquoise ink, but its clarity lends it a unique softness. I like it better on ivory-colored than bright white paper, because it looks softer in the former. While wet, it appears lighter than SS Blue, but looks very soft and readable as soon as it dries. Shading is very evident, as it is with Rouge Opera, and again, that is something I very much like with my inks. I like Bleu Pervenche a lot and right now, I got four pens already filled with it.

And for writing samples, I present my attempts to learn Chancery Italic Script. I wanted to present something worthwhile with my ink tests, and inspired by my Speedball textbook and Ann Finley's instructions at FPN, here are a few samples of my new addiction.

Below is one of my better attempts to Chancery italic script using my Schneider Calligraphy pen with a 1.5mm italic nib.


And finally... a small token of my gratitude to Karen and to Exaclair for being so generous in giving away so many of their products not only for review but also for long-term use. I will forever be grateful to Karen for sending stuff all the way from New York to the Philippines so I can review, use and enjoy these wonderful products I so dearly love!

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