Review: J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

When I first saw J. Herbin's Ambre de Birmanie fountain pen ink, I thought this would be perfect for taking on a vacation to the Mediterranean.  Can't you just see Italian villas and Spanish castles in this shade?

 

 Here I am in the wet, green, cloudy Pacific Northwest, but in the end I'm still finding this color very useful and really  a joy to work with.  It implies a sunny day even if it's not literal...

It's dark enough in a fountain pen to work well for line drawings...

You can use it in a brush pen to add mid-tone.

Brush it over some fountain pen inks and it will make mud... but over others it makes magic.

This ink is great in fountain pen or brush pen. I see the most potential for use in sketching, but if your pen lays down a nice dense line, it's beautiful for writing as well.  

Review: Noodler's Flexible Nib Piston-Fill Fountain Pen

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

Noodler's Flexible Nib Piston-Fill Fountain Pen is an exciting product unique to its price range.  It costs approximately $14 plus shipping from online retailers - if you can find it in stock.  Both Goulet Pens and I Sell Pens are out of stock at the time of writing but will put you on an email re-stock notification list.  

Besides the clear demonstrator model shown, it also comes in various colors.

In short, this pen is a little bit wonderful and a little bit a pain in the neck.

The body is simple and sturdy, certainly aimed more towards functionality than beauty.  The piston-fill mechanism is easy to use and loads up a fair amount of ink.  The nib leaks a little bit while not in use (note the splatter visible in the photo of the capped pen), but the cap seals well so there have been no accidents.  The tip can draw a very fine line all the way up to a super bold line, and man is it fun to use for making fancy letters.

The drawback of this pen is that there can be flow issues. Even after washing the entire pen out multiple times with soap and warm water, it was a struggle getting it to write consistently. This sample was made with J. Herbin's Poussiere de Lune, and I got similar results using Noodler's Antietam.  Note that some of the letters just... peter out.

This may partially be a matter of getting accustomed to using a flex pen, which requires some care to be taken with angle and speed.  After pages and pages of tests, I did manage to do the animal sketches below using Noodler's Antietam without quite so much trouble as is evidenced by the above writing sample.

 

After a lot of efforts to make this pen behave with the J. Herbin and Noodler's inks, I obtained Waterman's South Seas Blue ink, which is recommended as one of the most free flowing inks around. It did seem to help and enabled some casual sketching on the bus at something close to my regular speed.  Note that because this pen can lay down a broad line, it's especially susceptible to smearing.

After the above sketches I switched back to Antietam to confirm that what I consider a "regular" flowing ink has problems in this pen, and it was absolutely true - the sketch on the right was laborious to make.  I switched back to South Seas Blue to produce the small drawing below, and perhaps you'll see from the sketchiness of that drawing that I was moving much more quickly and it basically worked, though even then the pen ran dry a couple of times.  If your hand moves more slowly than mine as you sketch or write, you'll probably have an easier time of it, but it's still going to be a good idea to use an ink that is reputed to be fast flowing.

One other thing about this pen - it smells terrible, straight out of the box.  Before you use it, take it apart (remove the nib and the plastic feed behind the nib, and unscrew the body parts) and give all the pieces a good, thorough wash with warm water and soap.

The bright side of the Noodler's Flex is that the variable width of the line gives a very distinctive look to any drawing made with it, and that's a lot of fun.  With an ink that shades, the results are reminiscent of bamboo pen drawings but with a more precise minimum width.  This is a perfect pen for showing off a beautiful ink.

When you want a smooth, reliable line you can just go to town with, this pen isn't the one to grab - but if you want an intriguing style that will give your sketches or writing a different look than you've been able to generate before and you don't mind working slowly, the Noodler's flex will provide new and unique opportunities.

Note: If you own a Noodler's flex pen and don't have the flow problems I've talked about, please post a comment and let us know!  Maybe I got a bad nib; maybe there are a lot of other inks that will work well; I'd love to hear more happy stories about this pen especially regarding using it for drawing.

Review: J. Herbin Lie de Thé Fountain Pen Ink

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

Not long ago I started exploring brown pen options in the post Brown Pen Battle. Now I add for consideration a fountain pen option:  J. Herbin's Lie de Thé (Tea Brown) ink.

J. Herbin offers some gorgeous, brilliant, and intriguing colors, and Lie de Thé is no exception.  I found it to be a very pleasing brown tone that seems to dance between all its constituent colors so that sometimes I see more green or yellow in it and sometimes red.  The above strokes were made with a brush;  I've also loaded the ink into my Pilot Penmanship and Hero M86 Chinese Calligraphy Pen, shown here with a couple of comparison colors.

 
Of course, the J. Herbin inks are not waterproof, and therefore are not going to be ideal for all uses. Still, oh man, what a lovely color.  

My only other brown-ish ink right now is Noodler's Antietam, which is actually more of a red than a brown. It's an extremely beautiful color that I've tried to use as if it were brown but the red can easily overwhelm a drawing or clash with watercolors that get added later. This J. Herbin brown, on the other hand, is beautifully balanced.  It works great as a brown that can play nice with most other colors, adding rather than competing.  It doesn't demand the spotlight but it's willing to step up when needed. 

Here you can see that the color works gorgeously both for line and with added water. There is no watercolor used in this drawing - just the Lie de Thé and a waterbrush, along with a gray brush pen for the distant buildings (see my next review, up soon.)  

There are so many beautiful colors of ink to use, but a well-balanced brown gets special points for versatility.  This ink is gorgeous on buff paper and white, with water and without, with added colors or on its own. If you're looking for a water soluble brown ink to sketch with, that will work for a lot of subjects and a variety of styles, the Lie de Thé will not disappoint.