Kate's "Frankenpen," Part TWO

My converted Noodler's to a bent nib is FUN...

Here's the pen and  nibs together...

 I used to feed from the original Noodler's Creaper pen...you just gently work it out of the pen.  (While I was at it I deepened the feed groove slightly to make it feed better.)

The nib is from an M-86 Hero pen, a perfect fit.  (The feed did not, though, so voila, Frankenpen!)

A good cleaning with Goulet's pen flush put everything in the mood to work well...

Here, you can see the lines of the feed, and the approximate position...you hold the nib and feed firmly in one hand and push it into the pen.  Don't force it, but seat it well.


You can see the position and the bent nib well below...

And the pen in action!

Hero pens are available online (though the M-86 is hard to find, perhaps on eBay last time I checked); it looks as if an 8-Horses Hero might fit too, but I have yet to try one.  (And ya know, they work just fine in the pen body they come in, they're just a bit heavy for me!)

A review of the M-86 is here--you can see photos here too.  It's a bit awkward to use and the cap doesn't fit well when posted--it unbalances the pen but it has a LOVELY nib, hence my conversion!

I usually pick up my Noodler's Creapers from Gouletpens.com--they've got a huge selection of colors, too!  (No, I don't work for Goulet or get a cut from them--they're just terrific people to work with, so I like to spread the word!)

Alas, I don't know about converting any of the other pens out there--I'm so happy with this one!

Again, these two posts are in answer to correspondent Liz Steel's question about my pen hack in her wonderful series on Fountain Pens for Sketching--don't miss it!

Kate's "Frankenpen!" Part ONE

Our dear friend and book contributor Liz Steel has been doing a wonderfully helpful series on her blog on Fountain Pens for Sketching, on Tuesdays and Thursdays--don't miss it! 

She asked me about my Noodler's Creaper conversion to a bent-nib calligraphy pen, and though I've mentioned it in passing, here, I really didn't say much about it...so here's Part One, how I did it, and why!  I love that pen...lightweight, versatile, handy and fun!

The bent-nib pens are great fun , once you learn how to hold them...this is from my YouTube video that shows a number of ways to use them.

Actually, it's Chinese, in this case, but oh well...

Our community center after a fire, with my Hero pen...

NICE variation for the trees...

And oops, sorry, Blogger's being weird, so I'm having to do this in two parts...

My Everyday Journaling Supplies

It's always interesting to see what other artists consider necessary for their everyday journal work, so I thought I'd share mine...this is what survived after a recent trip to Nevada, and granted, I didn't jettison MUCH!  

This is what goes in my purse...which really ISN'T much of a purse, it's my field bag/traveling studio!  My usual retrofitted Prang box at the bottom, an old pencil case with a few tools, a sprayer that doubles as my water supply and the little collapsing bucket above it if I need more (I've never been able to find another one this small!)  Then in upper center the new Sharpie EF white, a couple of Micron Pigmas that don't mind changes in air pressure, a couple of colored pencils for sketching, and two waterbrushes.  (The flat one didn't actually go on the trip but I wished it had...)  A small vial of ink in the tiny bag and a pocket protector full of pens and one mechanical pencil...it all weighs in less than 2 lbs.

My old retrofitted Prang box makes me feel like a kid!  I've replaced the round brush with a better one from Black Gold, and that's a bamboo skewer for drawing with, like a pen.  These are my usual colors, except I've taken out the green: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cathy-johnson/8126242177/in/set-72157604173444404

Here's what goes in the pencil box, from the top...a 1" flat with the end sharpened, a #8 travel brush, a small bristle brush (also sharpened) I use for painting, spatter, or lifting; a toothpick and another skewer, a piece of credit card for scraping and the lightest possible pencil sharpener for those colored pencils, a piece of sharpened dowel rod and a small dip pen we found on eBay.  It's an antique!  (Sometimes a little piece of white vinyl eraser, too...)

Pocket protectors work great to corral my pens and a pencil!

A lovely array of pens and points...from left, my ancient Sheaffer, a Noodler's Creaper, a Creaper body with a Hero bent nib in it, another old Sheaffer for smoooooth writing (ok, I could leave it home), my Platinum Carbon Desk Pen cut short so it will cap, and my favorite Pentel Forte mechanical pencil.  (Here's the post in which I tell how I cut the Carbon Desk Pen: http://artistsjournalworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/06/yet-another-new-pen.html)

Yum.  Even if they DID leak in the plane...

It all fits in here...

And the front zipper pocket is all that actually acts as a purse!  Drivers' license and credit cards (and our wedding picture!), pills, salt and pepper, cell phone, mirror, comb, nail clipper...and when I'm not flying, a TINY Swiss Army knife...

Could I do with less?  Of course.  Am I likely to?  Um...not till the arthritis gets worse!  I might leave out that one pen...

I'll share some of my sketches in another post!

Finally, sketching outdoors again!

And ended up making a journal spread...

This is the finished spread...trying out new colors!

All I got done on the spot; my ink wasn't drying!  It was Noodler's Lexington Gray in a Hero bent-nib pen, and usually dries quickly.  Not yesterday!  So this morning I decided to take my time and mask off the little waterfalls and ripples!

I'm testing new watercolors from Golden--QoR paints, pronounced "core"!  You'll be hearing more about them...happily, I had an unused palette to put them in.

I decided to use a lot of wet-in-wet to keep it fresh...lots of Naples Yellow and Quin Gold in the rocks...

I used my little sprayer to soften the fore edge, and laid in the fish while the water was still wet.

Removed the mask and added a headline...strengthened some areas in the background...

I tried to keep the feeling of motion in the water...

Pleased with the fish!

I used a pen made from a honeysuckle twig for the pampas grass...

And my new Sharpie EF water-based marker defined the water a bit more.  It's acrylic, so I could paint over it when it dried...nice.

All in all, I was pleased with the spread for how it preserved the day--strong winter sunshine and a good day with old friends.  I'm a bit of an introvert (OK, understatement!) and spending a little time sketching in the midst of the party helped keep me focused.

AND I was pleased with the paints, which are strongly pigmented and re-wet nicely.  You'll be hearing more about them as I try out more things...

A progressive urban sketch

This is my sketch, using a Hero calligraphy pen nib in a Noodler's body--lightweight and handy for on the spot sketching when you want a larger variety of line weights!

I happened to have one of the original Noodler's flex pens on hand, so decided to give putting a Hero 86 nib in place instead of the one that came with it.  It's my favorite sketching pen now! 

You can find more information on how to do that down the page a bit on the Fountain Pen Network.  Definitely does NOT fit the Ahab, but it's fine in the Creaper--the original flex pen.

I was careful to keep the non-essential areas very high key so they wouldn't compete with the building. I painted the white room that extends over the deck with suggestions of blue to suggest shadows.

I wanted the trumpet vine's flowers to show up against the green, so I broke out my set of Crayolas--kids' crayons for those who aren't familiar with them.  A dot of waxy color here and there would repel the paint...

You can see how that worked!  I varied the greens, too, flooding in blues and yellows while it was still wet.

Raw sienna underwash worked for the areas that weren't painted white--that one room extends over the porches.  I let that dry and left some bits of white paper here and there.

Finally, I added the warm color of the bricks--burnt sienna and a bit of quinacridone burnt scarlet, adding ultramarine blue in the shadowing and encouraging variation in color.  I used more of the green mix where the potted plant was.  I decided to keep the foreground mostly unpainted except for the shadows to keep the focus where it belonged.

I love this crazy old building...just wish I'd caught it when there was laundry hanging on the impromptu lines and over the railings!