De Atramentis Document Ink Green Grey is a waterproof fountain pen ink that could have easily been called “Sage Green”. It’s dry and offers a fair amount of shading, is quick drying and would be a good addition to any Urban Sketcher’s kit.
Ink swab on Col-o-Ring
While I think that De Atramentis Document Ink Green Grey is much too light to be useful as a writing ink (see sample below) its subtlety, natural shade and waterproofness makes it very useful when coupled with watercolours.
Writing sample with two different pens on Midori MD cotton paper.
When used by itself, particularly in wider nibs, DA Geen Grey gives sketches a “vintage” feel and a good amount of interest: it both shades and allows for dry brushing effects because it’s so dry. Want a dry brush effect? Just work fast, and the tendency of this ink to skip will suddenly be an advantage:
Dry brush effectVintage look to a vintage motorcycleThis shade makes this sketch a bit melancholy, which is what I was looking for.
DA Green Grey truly shines as an under-drawing ink for watercolours. You can freely sketch guidelines and work directly in ink with it, and then add watercolour. It’s light enough to fade into the background, while still remaining permanent on the page and providing you with useful references.
Under-drawing/guideline sketchInk sketch with a Staedtler pigment liner
Can you even see DA Green Grey lines in this sketch? (you can, from very close by and if you know what you’re looking for)
If you work with watercolours, especially if you’re an urban sketcher, I highly recommend adding De Atramentis Document Ink Green Grey to your kit. It can replace a pencil for the under-sketches of your work, and it doesn’t change the shade of the watercolours, nor does it need to be erased. A pen with this is going to be added to my sketch kit, though I will probably use a fine or medium nibbed fountain pen for this ink and not go any finer because it’s so dry.
First thing’s first: if you are looking for a writing pen, then the Majohn Q1 mini fountain pen is likely not for you. While you can purchase it with an extra-fine, fine or medium nib, it’s weird body shape would likely make it uncomfortable for long writing session, and as it’s an eyedropper filler, it’s designed to have a giant ink capacity, normally suitable for long writing sessions.
If, on the other hand, you are looking for a fountain pen to sketch with, the Majohn Q1 may be a very worthy addition to your kit.
The box. I love the “Feel the temperature of writing!” inscription on it.
I purchased the Majohn Q1 bent nib fountain pen after seeing Paul Heaston use it in one of his sketches. “What is THAT?!” I asked, and immediately set out on getting one. This weird looking fountain pen reminded me of the Tombow Egg pen (google it. I’ll wait), which I always wanted and never got because I couldn’t afford one at the time. The Majohn Q1 appears to have almost the exact same design as the Tombow Egg, with a few minor details in the trim and molding of the grip section. I purchased mine on Amazon for $22.
What’s in the box: fountain pen with bent nib installed, eyedropper, and a spare medium nib.
The box the Majohn Q1 arrives in is good looking enough to gift someone. Inside there’s the pen with the Fude/bent nib installed, a spare medium nib (the bent nib is an “aftermarket” installation) and a glass eyedropper that you can use to fill the pen with. The pen itself comes installed with an o-ring so that it can safely be eyedroppered. I filled mine with De Atramentis Black Document ink, which is waterproof when dry.
I filled the pen only to 3/4 and still it holds a tremendous amount of ink, especially for such a small pen.
Now the Majohn Q1 is a very small pen, that holds a very, very large amount of ink. That’s why I was interested in it, as I thought that it would be a perfect fountain pen to add to my urban sketching kit. I currently use a Sailor Fude DE Mannen fountain pen for my urban sketching, and it’s a favourite among urban sketchers for the expressive, painterly lines it creates. It is, however, very long and pretty unwieldy: difficult to pack, and sometimes awkward to hold. Here are the Majohn Q1, a Lamy AL Star and a Sailor Fude pen laid next to each other, for size comparison:
As you can see, the Majohn Q1 is pocket pen sized in length, and very, very wide. It can’t be used unposted, as is to be expected with pocket pens, but once it’s posted, it just becomes an extra wide standard length fountain pen:
The point of this pen is the bent/Fude nib, so here it is, in all the different line widths it can create:
And here’s the Sailor Fude for comparison:
The Majohn Q1 offers much more line width control and consistency than the Sailor Fude, but you sacrifice some of the painterly quality and dynamism of the Sailor Fude to achieve that control.
The Majohn, like the Sailor, isn’t perfect in terms of gripping experience. While it’s much easier to grip the Majohn in a variety of different angles to get a variety of different lines, there’s a pretty pronounced step between the pen body and the grip section that can be uncomfortable if that’s where your fingers naturally land on. For me, I grasp the pen either closer to the nib, or not on the section at all but rather on the pen body. I’d recommend trying it out first, but for $22, it might be worth it just to buy the pen and try it out for a while.
Bent nib and grip section closeup.
Here’s a sketch of a friend’s border collies sketched with the Majohn. As you can see, it’s relatively easy to get both a good level of control with this pen, a lot of line variation, and some of that painterly quality to the line that makes it more interesting and expressive.
Majohn Q1 bent nib, De Atramentis Document Ink Black, Moleskine Pocket Watercolour notebook.
Here’s the complete sketch, just for fun:
Schmincke watercolours added.
If you’re at all interested in fountain pen sketching, and especially if you are an urban sketcher, I recommend giving the Majohn Q1 bent nib fountain pen a try. It’s easier to control and to transport that a Sailor Fude, and holds a much larger ink capacity, which is great for long sketching sessions or when you need to block out a large section with ink. For such a low price you get quite a lot, and the learning curve is much less steep than with a Sailor Fude DE Mannen fountain pen. I don’t do calligraphy, but I assume that it could be worth a try for calligraphy as well, especially if you are looking for a travel friendly solution. And who knows, maybe you’ll get to feel the temperature of writing while using it…
It’s been a while since the last update, and since I’ve been travelling there also haven’t been many posts lately. I plan to get back to a regular posting schedule next week, but first, an update.
Health
As the weather changed, and as I had to travel, my neuropathy has seen ups and downs. It was absolutely terrible on the plane, but it’s much better now. At this point my pain level hovers around a 2-3, and that’s something that I’ve learned to live with. I’ve been able to get back to drawing, I’ve started building Legos again (something that I picked up as a meditational/self-soothing hobby during my hospitalisation and really helped me while I could still build them), and I’ve had no trouble typing lately.
Watercolour pencil sketch of the lookout over the separate beach in Tel Aviv.
Reading
I’ve been on a murder mystery roll lately, mostly because April was a travel month. I’ve read three early Agatha Christie mysteries, after not picking up one of her books for years, and I rediscovered how entertaining and insightful she could be. I’m currently steaming through the latest “Rivers of London” book, “Amongst Our Weapons” by Ben Aaronovitch (so far it’s been a very enjoyable read), and I have a Miss Marple mystery (“A Murder is Announced”) before I return to more serious and lengthy reading.
As for the Tournament of Books challenge, I made my way through Sally Rooney’s “Beautiful World, Where Are You?” And found it even more insufferable than “Normal People”. I couldn’t stand the characters, the slow and stilted writing, the self importance of everyone involved, and how little plot there was to make up for all the rest. Anne Garréta’s “In Concrete” wasn’t great, but I’m not sure that it isn’t a matter of a lot of meaning and innuendo being lost in translation, despite the valiant efforts of the translator. It was at least an interesting book with interesting characters – a sort of female, French take on Tristram Shandy. “The Echo Wife” by Sarah Gailey was a fascinating near future science fiction novel that is worth reading even if you don’t like science fiction. It has a lot to say about what makes us who we are, and how cycles of abuse are created and can be broken. I’ve started reading Gary Shteyngart’s “Our Country Friends” but I moved to lighter reading while I was traveling. It’s the next book in the challenge that I intend to finish.
Currently Inked
I cleaned out all of my fountain pens before my trip, apart from my Schon Design pocket 6, and two Lamy Safaris filled with De Atramentis Document ink. I bough a few fountain pens, a bit of ink, and a whole host of notebook and art supplies during my trip and I’m planning to break them out and give them a try and review a few during the coming weeks. Meanwhile I still have one Lamy Safari inked up for my sketches, the Schon Design pocket 6 fountain pen which I’m about to write dry, and a newly inked Kaweco Collection Iridescent Pearl. I wasn’t planning on buying it, but I saw it at “Present and Correct” and couldn’t resist. As I bought a few tins of J. Herbin ink cartridges while I was in Paris, I popped an Eclat de Saphir cartridge into this pen.
Other
In other news I quit my job of the past 13 years this week, and I’m starting a new job next month. It was a difficult decision to make, and one that took me a while, but I truly believe that this change will be for the better.
We’re having a cold snap this week, which means bad news for my hands. So there’s only 6 new sketches today, but at least I am back to pen and ink, and I haven’t been confined to gesture drawings (not that they’re bad, I just wanted to practice my portraits).
Drawn with a Lamy Safari Petrol fine nib, De Atramentis Document Urban Grey ink on a Stillman and Birn Alpha.
Writing at Large 