Pelikan Hub

On November 18^th, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. local time, I joined fountain pen enthusiasts around the world at a meet-up called Pelikan Hub. It is sponsored by the German company, Pelikan, but organized locally. Edmonton’s was apparently the most northerly one. I’d never been to one before but the Hubs started in 2014 and took place annually until the last couple of years when they were cancelled due to the pandemic. An interesting mix of people attended. I like fountain pens but I have nothing like the collections several participants brought along. Some had over a hundred pens! I got to try quite a few.

Pelikan is a German company founded early in the 19^th century in Hanover. A chemist called Carl Hornemann opened a colour and ink factory. The company steadily grew and they began to use a picture of a pelican as a trademark, registering it in 1878. This started a trend in using bird motifs for trademarks in Germany. In 1881, Schmincke, the art supply company I wrote about earlier this month, chose an owl for their trademark. In 1929, Pelikan produced its first fountain pen. As well as inks and writing implements, Pelikan now also makes art and office supplies and is headquartered near Berlin.

I always love a freebee so one motivation for me to attend was the promise of swag. I got a promotional magazine from Pelikan, a pad of fountain pen friendly paper, a large chisel-tip black marker, and a sample of the turquoise coloured Pelikan Edelstein Ink of the Year 2022, Apatite, courtesy of Penablers. He also brought along bottles of other Edelstein inks we could try. The word “Edelstein” means gemstone in German so all the colours are named after gems. The hefty 50 ml glass bottles reminded me of expensive perfume bottles.

The ink samples were written with my glass dip pen and swabbed with a cotton swab

I don’t have any information about the paper but it is a nice smooth white paper and heavier than HP Premium 32 LaserJet paper. The pad (210 mm x 148 mm) fits nicely into my Walden Woodworkers note board. I just wish every page didn’t have Pelikan written on the upper righthand corner.

The 710 permanent markers were provided to sign a big Pelikan Hub banner but there were lots so I took one to try out. I don’t think this marker is available in Canada as I have not seen one before. It is very black and there was some show-through the thick paper in the Pelikan pad. According to the Pelikan website, it is waterproof on almost all materials and is refillable, although they don’t explain how you would go about refilling it.

If a Pelikan Hub were a person, they would be very sociable. They are a bit obsessed with pens and ink and love to share their enthusiasm.

Tombow TwinTones

I bought a set of six rainbow Tombow Twintones a few weeks ago thinking they were brush pens like the Tombow Fudenosuke as they also make dual brush pens. Actually, Twintones are markers with different sized fiber tips on each end; the wider one is 0.8 mm and the extra-fine is 0.3 mm. They write smoothly creating sharp, clear lines. With bold letters the package says “Won’t bleed through paper!” and that indeed appears to be true.

The ink is dye and water-based and there was very little smudging when I wet the paper. The caps are snug, but not interchangeable. The cap on the fine-tip end has a clip on it.

The rainbow package comes in six bright colours; Violet, French Blue, Yellow Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red.

Of course, Twintones aren’t the only doubled-ended markers out there. I have a couple ZIG Memory Writers made by Kuretake. It’s another long-established Japanese company (started in 1902, Kuretake is nine years older than Tombow). Their catchy slogan is “Reconnect to sentiment by returning to analog, create with emotion, not calculation”. The ZIG tips are a bit larger than the Twintones with the very fine pointed plastic nib just 0.5 mm while the larger bullet-shaped fiber nib is 1.2 mm.

I did some comparisons using the Kuretake ZIG, as well as a Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pen (0.3mm), and a Crayola fine tip marker. Basically it comes down to preference, both in line weight and pen size, as well as what your budget allows.

Comparison between the extra-fine tips of the Twintone, Staedtler Triplus Fineliner, and Kuretake ZIG Memory Writer.

Comparison between the bullet tips of the Twintone, Kuretake ZIG Memory Writer, and Crayola fine tip marker.

If Tombow Twintones were people they would be tidy, talented, and wear terrific, tight-fitting tops.

DecoColor Calligraphy Paint Marker

When I was drawing versals for one of January’s posts, I had to break open a new gold metallic pen. I wrecked my Pilot Gold Paint Marker when I didn’t properly clean the tip before putting it away. The lid became hopelessly stuck to the marker and I broke it altogether when I used pliers to try to take it off.

The DecoColor Calligraphy paint marker is similar to the Pilot Paint Marker in that it needs a thorough shaking before writing and has that distinctive paint smell I have learned is xylene. Unlike the Pilot, the DecoColor marker has a chisel point (flat 2 mm nib) so you can make both thick and thin lines. Below are photos of the nib before and after I used it.

Before using

After using

I think it is a brighter gold and bit more sparkly than the Pilot. It writes smoothly but the opaque, oil-based paint shows through the reverse on most papers.

You can see it is a bit brighter than the Pilot gold marker.

The DecoColor marker is made in Japan by the Marvy division of the Uchida Yoko Group. Although the company was founded in 1941, the Marvy (pens and markers) part has been around since 1973. I like that the marker came shrink wrapped in plastic with no other packaging.

I used it on B and V letters made on Hahnemühle YouTangle.art tiles and for an acanthus leaf I drew on Eaton Calligraphy Writing Paper with a Staedtler Pigment Liner accented with QOR cobalt teal watercolour paint.

If the DecoColor Calligraphy paint marker were a person, they would have a chiseled jaw and golden hair and ignore those “this is a scent-sensitive location” signs. Some would call them ostentatious, but they enjoy a bit of bling. 

Staedtler Pigment Liner

Photo courtesy of Elisabet Ingibergsson

I was drawing some zentangles inspired by Beate Winkler’s book, The Great Zentangle Book, and it occurred to me I hadn’t given the Staedtler pigment liner the attention it deserves although it did make a brief appearance in my post on coloured pens.

The Staedtler pigment liner is a fineliner, a fitting name for a marker that makes a fine, permanent, black line. It can be used for writing or drawing but I find that I get the best ink flow with this type of pen if I hold it more upright than is comfortable for my writing style so I mainly use it for drawing. I think it was designed to be used as a technical pen as its long metal tip is perfect for using with a ruler or template. It creates a clean, consistent line that doesn’t bleed through paper and, as it is waterproof, it doesn’t smudge when highlighted. It’s no beauty but it is very sturdy. Written right on the barrel, along with claims that it is indelible, waterproof on paper and lightfast, is that it can be left uncapped for 18 hours without drying up. I haven’t tested this but mine is an old pen; it was supplied to one of my daughters in a high school art class almost 10 years ago, and it still writes well.

I have quite a few Staedtler products in my stash of supplies including the Wopex pencil, an Ergosoft pencil crayon, Textsurfer highlighters, Mars eraser, pencil sharpener and many pencils including the Mars Lumograph and a Non-Photo blue pencil.

Staedtler is an old German company based in Nuremberg. As early as the 1660s Friedrich Staedtler was producing pencils by hand. According to the company website, Herr. Staedtler set the stage for the entire pencil-making profession by making complete pencils from lead production and the cutting of the wooden stick, right up to the finished pencil itself. While Nuremberg was a bustling trade center in the middle ages, by the early 16^th century the city’s social hierarchy and legal structures had become rigid, contributing to a decline in trade. For example, the trade guilds determined that pencil making required two different trades so should not be done in one shop as Staedtler was doing. I’m not sure how he got around this violation but it meant that it couldn’t be officially recognized as a company until 1835 when the restrictions were relaxed allowing his great-great-grandson Johann Sebastian Staedtler to registered it.

If the Staedtler pigment liner were a person, they would have a serious bent, preferring to dress in grey or black, and happiest when meticulously working on their precise drawings.  Their posture is always impeccable.

Doodle a Day

One stationery item I haven’t used much this year is my 2020 Engagement Calendar. I haven’t even wanted to look in it recently as it just reminds me of all the activities I’m not doing. It seemed a shame to let that good paper go to waste though so I thought I would try doing a quick doodle each day.

Some days I was definitely more inspired than others, but that’s alright. I used a variety of supplies including:

Crayola markers

Zebra fountain pen

Inkjoy ballpoint pens

Noodler’s blue-black ink

Sakura Koi watercolours (for the koi fish of course!)

Decorated Envelopes

Social distancing dosesn’t mean social isolation and as there is no evidence COVID-19 is spread through the mail, now is a good time to put an encouraging note in a decorated envelope and send it to a friend.

Lately, I have been playing around with a few ideas to embellish the mail I’m sending. First, you can draw a simple picture on an envelope and incorporate the address into the design. You don’t need fancy pens to make these. The birthday cake design was drawn with Crayola markers. In the past, I used my paint set to paint pumpkins on envelopes for Halloween cards.

Another idea is to make your own envelopes out of recycled paper. I’ve recently used patterned paper like old maps and calendar pages. Just keep in mind busy designs necessitate the use of labels to keep the address legible.  Since I didn’t actually need to mail the calendar page one, I placed a piece of paper with the name of the recipient over some distracting writing instead of centering it (the name was written in the same style as last year’s Easter greeting). You can be resourceful in finding paper to use. One year I used old sketchbook pages for envelopes for Halloween cards.

If you don’t feel up to either drawing on an envelope or making one yourself, you can always recycle one of those return envelopes that are sometimes enclosed with a bill or donation appeal. Just cover the writing on it with scraps of decorative paper and, voila, you have an interesting envelope. This one was labeled with rub-on transfer letters (I love using these for addressing envelopes).

I’m not sure if what I’ve come up with could really be described as mail art, but it does follow in the tradition of using the postal service to share creative work.

If decorated envelopes were people, they would be ingenious spies infiltrating the postal system but they are not there to gather intelligence, they are there to spread joy.