It's Spring...So Textiles or Paint?

I find I'm drawn to Textiles in the winter months, and to paint in the summer.  Fall often finds me dropping into the doldrums, not sure what to do next, and either experimenting with new ideas and materials or cleaning and reorganising my life.  Spring has the opposite effect, with the greatest difficulty in reining myself in, and choosing a single idea or tool or material to play with next.  If Fall is the season of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), then Spring is the season of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder).  Either way, ORDER is what is needed most!

I've been playing with inks lately.  See, I traded another artist a glass grinding machine for a set of Rapidograph pens.  It was a delightful trade, as each of us wanted what the other had and never used!

Omas, Italy

St Dupont, French

Knowing full well that Rapidograph and other technical pens are known for their clogging and irretrievable malfunctions, I loaded four pens up and started drawing.  And I was back to my youth in an instant!  What a pleasure technical pens are for me to use...and a real pain, too.  Unlike pens with preloaded ink, technical pens are very much like calligraphy and fountain pens in that a pause while touching the paper WILL result in a blob of ink.  So it takes a little practice to learn how to hold a technical pen (upright, not at an angle as you would a writing instrument), and to learn how lightly or heavily to touch and swoop.  But what a treat to see how deliciously they flow and mark the page!

Pelikan, German

When I ran through the first load of ink, I consulted my favourite source, the AMAZING Akamai Art Supply of Port Townsend, Washington.  If you EVER have the opportunity, Akamai alone is worth the trip to our little Victorian tourist town.  Nothing less than fabulous!

"What kind of ink can I use other than the dreadfully expensive Rapidograph ink in my pens?" I asked.  The extremely knowledgeable and reliable Shirley (one of the owners) answered, "Any good ink you would use in a fountain pen, as long as it's clear."  "So no India Ink or other opaque inks?"  "Yep."

Mont Blanc, French

And knowing I had an entire drawer full of Mont Blanc, Parker, Omas, St. Dupont, Pelikan, Aladine, and J. Herbin inks - in many shades of red, green, blue, black, and purple, I returned home and set to work.  First the pen and reservoir had to be cleaned.  I knew this had to be done thoroughly, as most of the tales of clogging had everything to do with old ink interfering with the delivery system.  So first I took all the pieces apart and held them under warm water, shaking the ink-stained water out every few seconds.  After all visible ink was gone, and nothing more was issuing forth even when the parts were shaken, I then set the tip to soak in a small bowl of warm water for 24 hours. 

J. Herbin ink, French

Pen and Ink and Copic Moleskine

The next day, I selected one delicious bottle of ink - Herbin's Encre´ Rouge Fuschia -the exact colour of dove's blood, AND it's delicately scented, too!), and filled the pen's reservoir.  A slight shake or two, and I was able to draw a thin link across the page of ecru Crane's stationary paper.  Sheer bliss!