Today's Discovery in Creativity

This is today's tile.  I tried several new patterns such as "purk", "paradox" and "facets".  I'm not doing so great with designs that are heavy on the squares and triangles.  That doesn't come naturally for me.  Not sure why.  So, I decided to practice some geometric designs. 

This is what I got.  I tried doing the lines differently so that it created varied shading.  I wasn't crazy about the end result.  So, I tried to do just one square at a time.  This practice was done with a Platinum Preppy inked with R&K Verdigris.   

This was the result.  Do you remember Spirograph?  I reminds me of that.  I just took a square and then made arcs from corner to corner, turning the page to draw each arc.  It's not facets.  It's different.  There is probably a real name for this tangle pattern, but for now, it's my breakthrough in perseverance and giving myself some grace.

Happy with my "outside the box" thinking with the squares and arcs, I decided to try a tile that focused on square or triangle patterns.  The square/arcs experiment can be seen in the middle/upper right.  I purposely chose an odd shape with four sides for that particular exercise.  Then, to the left of that, I tried to do half of facets, but in my own way.  I drew lines from the center to the corners.  It's definitely not "facets", but it was more fun for me.   I realize that the result does look borderline "swirly", but really it's triangles with lines drawn from corner to corner.   I used an Esterbrook with 9461 nib (dry pen) and Diamine Eclipse (wet ink) for this exercise.

And so, that's sort of where the transformation took place today.  I couldn't get the hang of "facets".  So, I attempted my own interpretation.  So, then I decided to try some other new things.  I combined "feathers", "fescu" and "sez" and made this.  You can see my humble beginning in the upper left corner.  I didn't care for the end result, so I tried again.  and I liked it.  So, I did some more.   I really like peacock feathers, and that's what this reminds me of.  This was very pleasant and made me feel as though I had a breakthrough today.  I almost actually drew something.  By myself.  I can't remember the last time that I drew something that I liked, or drew something without "copying".  If that makes sense at all.  

I was so happy that I had a little fun with Instagram to memorialize the occasion.

Ink Nix Gets the Ink Off Your Fingers

Lily at JetPens graciously sent me this product to review.  Prior to opening the package, I had never heard of Ink Nix before but had always secretly hoped that something like this existed.  Yesterday, I bought a beginner's Speedball calligraphy set at my local art store.  I had so much fun playing with the various nibs and experimenting with what they could do.  Unfortunately, I also made a big mess.

Enter Ink Nix, the world's best ink remover.

I could not open this bottle fast enough.  When I did, I was surprised to find a very thick, pasty and gritty mixture inside.  It look much like an apricot facial scrub that you would find in the health & beauty section of the drugstore.  It also looks much like my kitchen countertop.  

The directions on the bottle were brief, but to the point and accurate.  Take a little bit of the Ink Nix mixture.  Rub in on the portions of your hands that are caked with ink.  Then, when you start to see the ink coming off, simply add a little water.  It's pretty simple actually.  As soon as I added a few drops of water, the ink came off.  Without a hitch.  I had to scrub a little bit, but not long at all.  In fact, the whole operation was very quick.

My fingers, especially the middle one, were loaded with Diamine Graphite.  That particular finger needed an additional small application of Ink Nix, but after that, it was gone.  Take a look.

Thank you, Lily, for sending me this product!  I am very grateful, because the day I decided to play with dip pens for the first time, I also had a dinner date.  I had no idea that my hands would end up looking like they did.  I would have been a little embarrassed to go to dinner looking like that!  Ink Nix was a bit of a lifesaver yesterday.  Otherwise, my date would have been asking me if I had just come from changing the oil in my car.   :-/

From a woman's perspective, I would have a nice tube of hand cream on standby when using Ink Nix.  I found it to be a little bit drying, and I have naturally dry hands to begin with.  I add that, not as a negative, but as a "nice to know" tidbit.  The fact that it can be somewhat drying is not all that surprising to me, but considering that it takes the ink right off your hands allowing one to go from "dirty" to "dinner" in about the span of five (5) minutes, it's a small price to pay.  It's all good!

Thank you, again, to Lily!  I am grateful for your generosity.  

Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo (Moonlight) / Diamine Twilight / Rohrer and Klingner Verdigris

*9/15/2012:  Note to reader: please also refer to my review Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo: Revisited.

This week I decided to try a new ink in my TWSBI, so I chose Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo (Moonlight) since it's darkish, blue-black nature would be appropriate for office and otherwise. I used this ink daily, throughout the week, and was happy with its overall performance, but, in the end, I'm not entirely crazy about the color.

In particular, I have been most curious about this dark green/blue/black "family" of inks, and decided to include some swabs of Diamine Twilight and Rohrer & Klingner Verdigris. All three inks are new to me, and Tsuki-yo is the only one of the three that I've used extensively up until this point. I had imagined these three to appear so similar as to be almost indistinguishable. But that's not the case at all. I was surprised at the results of the swab test: compared to Twilight and Verdigris, Tsuki-yo almost comes across like a dark turquoise. To my eye, at least.

Tsuki-yo performed admirably for me this week, including on cheap Staples legal pads that we use at work. However, I won't be rushing to buy a bottle of this one since I much prefer a darker blue-black.

Interestingly, the R&K Verdigris went down on the paper a very greenish, blue-black but dried a dark blue with a slight violet undertone to it. Of the three, Twilight strikes my fancy because it reflects a nice balance of dark blue-black with only a slight hint of green, and also has a bit of sheen to it. Ironically, while Diamine Twilight is named after the evening sky, it really reminds me of ocean waters.