Monthly Archives: January 2017

Robert Oster fountain pen ink review

Here in the United Inkdom, us poms and near neighbours are sometimes lucky enough to receive some bonzer gear to play with – sometimes pens, sometimes paper, and sometimes…  sometimes ink!

Bottles

And here’s the thing about that; a pen will convey the message, the paper will carry the message, but it’s the ink that brings the message to life.  So when we get inks to play with, all of us tend to get a bit over-excited.

Robert Oster Signature inks are fairly new to Blighty, but an Australian brand that’s quickly developing a strong following over here, and it’s easy to see why.

They’re not the fastest drying of inks, averaging between ten and fifteen seconds for full dryness on good paper.  As you might expect from an ink that wet the flow on them is superb, coverage on the page is complete, there’s no stutter, even from very fine nibs, but when you have an ink as rich and fulsome as these, you want something a little thicker to enjoy the tones upon the paper.

It’s also rare that all of us agree on the nature and quality of an ink – we’re an eclectic bunch with a wide variety of tastes – but universally, these colours have us inspired.  The inks have interesting names which give a nod to the inspiration of the creator, and as you’ll see in the many individual reviews linked below, they don’t disappoint.

But as a little teaser…

Direct Sun

Direct Sun

Barossa Grape

Barossa Grape

Emerald

Emerald

Claret

Claret

Summer Storm

Summer Storm

Grün Schwarz

Grun Schwarz

Blue-black

Blue Black

Deep Sea

Deep Sea

Blue SeaBlue Sea

 

The full range isn’t available in the UK yet, but it will be soon, and we’re both anticipating that (because these really are to die for), and dreading it (because we all have to eat sometime…) in equal measure.  They’re not the cheapest of inks, retailing at £14.50 for a single bottle, but with the viscosity of the ink in question, that bottle will last some time.  They can be found at iZods, who kindly donated some samples for this review exercise (thanks again Roy), and we gather other suppliers are also coming on-stream as we speak.

So without further ado, we present the combined reviews of United Inkdom for the Robert Oster Signature inks…

Gillian Jack’s review of Claret and Emerald

Daniel Oakey’s maritime meanderings in Blue Sea and Deep Sea

Sarah Goodall’s test of Emerald and Summer Storm

James Lake’s bathe in Direct Sun with a dash of Grün-Schwarz

Scribble’s bejiggering with the whole flamin’ lot

The Clumsy Penman’s barby in Direct Sun with a tinny of Barossa Grape

The Pen and Inkwell’s billabongful of Summer Storm, Blue Black, Blue Denim, Bondi Blue, Fire & Ice, Blue Sea and Deep Sea too.

 

Nib&Ink book review

When we first heard about this book from the excellent All Things Stationery blog, we knew we had to take a look – and thankfully the publishers (part of Penguin) were kind enough to send some review copies our way.  Here’s what we made of it…

nibinkpublicityshots

New Year’s Resolutions can involve all sorts of horrid self-denying ordinances and temporary punishments, but a rather better promise to yourself is to take the time to develop handwriting that you’re happy with, and maybe even a little bit proud of!  Dipping a toe into the world of ‘modern calligraphy’ is not a bad way to get started, and Chiara Perano has been offering direct assistance through the day courses she runs at her base, mysteriously entitled ‘Lamplighter’, in London. This book sprang from those courses, apparently, and like them aims to offer a user-friendly and accessible way in to going beyond hasty squiggle to mastery of the mystic curve.

how-to-hold-the-pen

Modern calligraphy is a little hard to define exactly, but broadly speaking it’s calligraphy which you can use in the here and now, without the hours and hours of tiresome exercises that stylistic dictators like Spencer would require, and with results that look a bit less like an obscure nineteenth-century legal text.  This book assumes that readers will attempt to follow Chiara’s letter-forms with a dip pen, and provides plenty of practical advice on how to do so.  Alternatively,  it’s perfectly possible to play along using a flex-nibbed fountain pen (as Sarah and Scribble did with their Heritage 912s),nibink-writing-sample

This is fun to work with, and the encouragement to write directly in the book feels nicely transgressive.  The number of letter-form options doesn’t become overwhelming, and the examples map out just what route the nib should take – it’s easy to follow, and there is lots of encouragement to practice, experiment, practice some more, and arrive at a style which is very much your own.sarahs

There are a few improvements which we’d like to see in the next edition including more FP-friendly paper (we’re told this is in hand already), a better proportion of content to filler (there are a rather cheeky number of practice pages), and perhaps a move to a loose-leaf format (maybe bound with Atoma discs?) so that it can properly fold-flat for writing in.  But these are relatively minor quibbles in what we felt was, overall, a…great-book

Getting hold of a copy for yourself is easy enough either straight from the author’s own website or via your book retailer of choice; the ‘street price’ is around £9, which looks like decent value to us.  You can download the handy guide sheets to print here.guidesheettop

For more detail see:

Thanks to Ebury Publishing for sending some review copies to us in time for Christmas experimentation!