“Putting pen to paper lights more fires than matches ever will…”
Malcolm Forbes
Being obsessed with fountain pens and their inks comes with an extra problem. You quickly become obsessed with paper as well. The performance of a pen, it”s ink and the paper you use is a tricky combination to get right. Many factors influence the potential of a paper to work well with fountain pens. Colour, weight, dry time, sheen, ghosting, feathering and bleeding are all in the mix. In general, heavy paper is better, pure white shows in colours well, textured paper bounces the pen nib unpleasantly. Sheen is the colour variation and reflection from an ink on paper. It is highly desirable. Ghosting is ink being visible through the paper from behind, it annoys most people. Feathering is the spread of ink into the paper beyond the written line, a little can be cute. A lot is called bleeding and is not. The holy grail of fountain pen paper is Tomoe River paper from Japan. At 52g it is very thin, not much more than tracing paper. It sheens like crazy, but the magic is that it doesn’t bleed or ghost. Of course it is nearly impossible to get your hands on. #paperchase #letsmakelemonade
Pen Paint and Scalpel 