The ystudio Brassing Portable Fountain Pen has finally made it into the US, along with the rest of the wonderfully designed ystudio lineup.
Vanness Pens has them all, including inks you need, like the new Monteverde short international cartridges.
My thanks to Vanness Pens for sponsoring The Pen Addict this week.
(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
When I started collecting fountain pens over five years ago, I never imagined I would own enough pens to need a system to keep track of all of them. But collecting pens is an addiction, and like any addiction, there’s always at least one more pen to buy. You start with one and wind up with one hundred.
I decided that, for insurance purposes and my need for sanity, I should come up with a way to keep my collection organized. I despise Microsoft Excel, so I knew I wouldn’t want to use it. I found a database app that works on my iPad, iPhone, and Mac called TapForms.
TapForms can manage any kind of information you want: recipes, books, home inventory, research, and cats (if you’re a cat lady). And what I love most about it is I can design each database with the layout, content, fields, and photographs I want. Right now my most used database is my fountain pen collection, but I also created a database to keep track of all my poetry for my M.A. thesis, and I started one to organize my ink.
I set up my Fountain Pen Collection Database with the information I need, and the great thing is, if I want to add more fields at any point, I can. Here’s a screen grab of the form I created:
You can see what kinds of information I find useful for each pen, including the manufacturer, color, nib type, photographs, where and when I bought the pen, repair information, and information about pens I’ve sold.
Here’s a screen grab of one of my pens catalogued in the form:
I can have the database organize the pens alphabetically by manufacturer (that’s my default), but I can also categorize pens by searching any field. For example, I can get lists of all the pens I’ve sold, all the pens with fine nibs, all the pens from a particular manufacturer, etc. Below is a partial list of pens with italic nibs in my collection:
This is a terrific tool for many reasons. First, I can keep track of all my pens. Second, I have the information I need for insurance purposes, including photos of each pen, limited edition numbers, and how much I paid for each pen. Third, if I decide to sell a pen, I already have the information about it in my listing, including whether or not I have the original packaging, what I originally paid for the pen, if it’s been repaired, etc. For example, here’s the information on one of the pens I sold.
I highly recommend TapForms if you don’t already have a method for keeping track of your pen and ink collections. You can secure the database with a password, which is especially useful if you keep it on your iPad or on a computer accessible to others.
For computers, TapForms is Mac only, but if you own an iPhone or iPad, there’s a stand-alone app. If you own both a Mac and an iPhone/iPad, you can sync your data across all devices (and you can even have it on your Apple Watch if you like).
The iPhone/iPad app is $16.99, and you can download it from the App Store here. The Mac app is $49.99, and you can purchase it directly from TapForms (or download a trial) or purchase it in the Mac App Store here.
(I purchased TapForms for Mac and iPad with my own funds.)
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(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)
Colored pencils are my favorite coloring tool, though I'm more of a casual colorer than an artist. While I have a few sets of Derwent and Prismacolor pencils, this was my first time working with Faber-Castell Polychromos. This set of 12 pencils comes in a nice tin. They're constructed of sustainable California cedar that smells amazing. The cores are bonded to the wood to prevent breaking, so these pencils tend to last a lot longer than other brands. The round barrels are comfortable to hold, though there is nothing to stop them from rolling off the desk.
The cores are oil-based, water-resistant, and acid-free. They have a thick 3.8mm diameter that helps with their break-resistance. They feel buttery soft when coloring, but hold their points well. I didn't have to sharpen them at all during the coloring session I did with my oldest son, and he insisted on covering every inch of his page. I did experience some crumbling when heavier pressure was applied, but it was minimal, and I was being a little hard on them on purpose. There was some smudging if I rested my hand on the work, but this trait also works well for blending and shading. The pigment is even somewhat erasable, though it does leave some color behind. The coverage of the soft lead is pretty amazing. With medium pressure, it only takes two layers to fully cover the paper, and because the lead is oil-based instead of wax-based, the color won't become cloudy. The colors are all incredibly vibrant.
One of the unique traits of these pencils is their lightfastness. The level varies by pigment and each pencil is marked by its degree of lightfastness so artists can be sure their work will last.
These are definitely top-quality artist's pencils, and you can tell when you use them. I can easily say these are the nicest pencils I've played with. They're also the most expensive pencils I've played with. The sets are a good deal when compared to the open stock colors, but the set of 12 is missing a few key colors. There's no grey, and no shade of purple. But these are nice enough to invest in a few supplemental open stock pieces.
And while these may be fancy artist pencils, they're still great for coloring books. My nine-year-old also granted them his seal of coloring approval. I might say that I wouldn't invest in this high of a price-point just for coloring books and doodles--but that would be a lie because I totally would. Because these are so pleasant to use that they amplify the joy of the experience. And when you think about how they're engineered to prevent lead breakage, you do get your money's worth out of them for sure. I'm looking forward to many rainy-day coloring afternoons with these.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
