Good writing pens are hard to find
Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Carl Sandburg
These days I almost exclusively write with black ink in some form. Right now my favorite pen is the Pilot Hi-techpoint V5 Grip pen (a Fine Roller Ball Pen with black ink). The metal nib seams to hold up for the pressure I put on it daily. I’ve written with the same pen all summer and it still works! Pen testing (for me) needs to go on for some time before you can give a true testimonial and judgment of the pens long-term qualities.
I have tired of the Pilot G-tec-c that used to be my favorite. It has the thinest nib ever and when you write with it it feels great, but it does not hold up in the long run. The nib keeps breaking before the ink runs out and it drives me crazy that I have to through away a half full pen over and over again. It is too costly to be a staple good in the house, so when one pen breaks I try to keep writing with it but the nib gets stuck in the paper, I get irritated, the ink pools and smears – and I though it in the trash with a sigh.
In my last order from Amazon I bought a pack of two Sharpie Fine Point Pens that I really enjoyed writing with – for a week. Then the nib got pushed in and the fun was out of the pens. Maybe I have too much pressure on the pens, but I think they should last more than two weeks for daily writing!
So for now I’m going to keep writing with the Pilot Hi-techpoint pen because it works well for me. I recommend you to try it out. But as you know, the search goes on. For ever. The perfect pen is just around the corner and one day we might all just find our own Perfect Favorite Pen! :-)
Have you found your own best match yet, when it comes to pens and notebooks?
For notebooks I will use nothing other than a large Moleskine sketchbook. The price is a little high, but for the page thickness and quality along with the lovely cover itself makes it worth it. Plus, since I don’t journal as often as I should, I don’t go through as many journals as I should either so that saves on the cost for me.
For pens, right now I am using a Sharpie pen. Although it’s the best I’ve used so far, it is not the pen of my dreams. I have no problem with the nibs, generally it’s the writing on different textures that it gives me issues with. So I will keep using the Sharpie pen until something better comes along that suits me better. Maybe I will try the pen you were raving about in this entry.
The Sharpie fine point is my favourite so far. But you do have to be gentle with it. My first one’s tip got hurt in the process but I’m on my 3rd one now and it works fine for daily writing/drawing.
I’m a definitive moleskine addict, i have my stock for the next 3 years at least. As for pens, I like variety, so for writing and drawing I love Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen (all colors with B end, and the smaller ones too, and I am very careful with them so they last me a few months at least, and I keep the old ones for other projects), sakura gelly roll (i have all colors but always carry a white one with me), the infamous Pilot G-TEC-C4 in black, a pentel brush pen (very expensive but waterproof and incredible line variety, so worth the price), i like the pilot G-2 07 in black for writing, and have a few similar Zebra pens in different colors, a white peel-off china marker and a brown pilot fineliner i recently bought…
http://missgaby.deviantart.com/art/Art-Porn-174139425
http://missgaby.deviantart.com/art/Go-with-the-flow-82550510
I absolutely love those pilots! But I use the vball grip 0,7 and I’ve used them for at least four years. It was love at first sight and I never looked back. And they work great in moleskines too!
It’s almost boring, I’ve found the perfect pens and the perfect notebooks, the search is over.
I alway buy a recycled Strathmore sketchpad. They’re cheap and environmentally friendly so I don’t get that guilty nervous freeze where I can’t bring myself to mark up a nicer notebook. I usually use pencil on that, or plain old ball point pen. For poetry though, nothing beats typing. I can type a lot faster than write, and I can almost keep up with my thoughts when I pour them into my word processor, plus it’s so very easy to edit. Your pen looks luscious though. Have fun with it!
I am always trying new notebooks/journals, as I’m a paper addict. I do love Moleskins for their quality paper, which holds up well to various mediums. As for pens, I am a huge fan of the Sharpie pens. I haven’t had a problem with the point breaking but I do recognize that they don’t write well over layers of mediums and I do have to push on them harder.
That was my comment above. I accidentally hit enter before I had a chance to fill out my info.
you cleared up a mystery for me about the sharpie pens. I didn’t realize the nibs were getting pushed inside I thought I was wearing them down to nothing! And it happens so quickly (2-3 weeks of daily writing and a bit of sketching) I was wondering why they didn’t produce longer lasting nibs. But now I see they are inferior rather than merely disappointing. I use picadilly press spiral bound notebooks for my writing journals. I detest trying to fit my thoughts and handwriting into a smaller more precious sort of journal. The paper is quite smooth and I would love the sharpies for this task if only they lasted longer! My husband has a horrible habit of “acquiring” my writing instruments so I do not like to get attached to very expensive pens in case they migrate to his work room rather than mine. All my gel pens and other art journaling writing stuff is HIDDEN so he cannot get them.
I am smitten with the uni-ball gel impact pen (the 1.0 mm size). The ink is shiny and blakc. The line is smooth, fluid, and inky. I use it primarily for writing in my private notebook journal (a cheapy spiral bound notebook they sell for schoolkids). My thoughts are quick and this pen keeps up with them. Writing with this pen, my letters are loopier and freer and it loosens up my thoughts as well. I do love my pen!
I just found a new-to-me pen from Sharpie, they call it the Sharpie Pen, and it’s like the ultra-fine-point marker but intended for writing, I guess. I haven’t used it enough to decide if I’m in love, but I do like the idea of a Sharpie that writes this thin. I’m pretty gentle with my writing pens, so hopefully I won’t wear out the nib. If I’m writing a lot, like on plain paper, I just use a cheap ball point pen, but if I’m writing on some kind of art project, I usually use Sharpies so far, but would prefer something that writes more like the cheap ball point pens I love (but on paint, shiny paper, plastic, etc) so I’m starting to understand why so many artists are always searching for the perfect pen.
i am looking for the perfect pen that writes smoothly on oil pastels and watercolor crayon? like you, hanna, i may be a bit too hard on the pens since it seems i go through so many!!!
I loved sharpies until I started trying to write on top of Neocolors, Acrylic paint and gel medium. It would ruin them in one sitting. Now I adore Staedtler Lumocolor permanent markers which write on ANYTHING and never dry out. I have yet to run one out either.
For paper I like hotpress 140# watercolor paper and make my own notebooks from that. I haven’t found a bound book with hotpress yet but I would enjoy the neatness of it since my own books are umm… rustic at best.
I’m enjoying this blog, thanks for writing!
I’ve been writing with the same fountain pen for about 15 years now. It’s a black Parker falcon my aunt gave to me when I was a teenager. She didn’t like fountain pen. It is amazing and it never dries up. I use cartridges, usually black or blue. I found that it’s cheaper in the long run to use cartridges than to buy new pens. It’s simple yet beautiful and it’s my writing companion.
Just found this blog, and I love it!
With notebooks, I tend to go back and forth between the large Moleskine, a medium Ciak (shorter but fatter, and better paper), a small Miquelrius flexible notebook and my most expensive (but worth it) notebooks so far; the smaller sized Adam’s journal.
That one does have lines, unfortunately, but I find I can ignore them while drawing.
As for pens, fountain pen only!
Current favorite; Pilot Prera with an M nib (which is more like an XF in western terms) with Noodler’s ink, usually Bulletproof Black.