I got on well with the Lamy Safari with the extra fine nib that I bought a week or two ago so I’ve decided to go for the aluminium version of the Safari, the AL-star, this time with a slightly thicker Fine nib, to use for both writing and for drawing.
After writing ‘the quick brown fox . . .’ and ‘jackdaws love my sphinx of quartz’ a couple of times on an envelope and doing a couple of doodles I tried it on those perennial subjects, my hands and my feet.
Bulletproof Black
I’ve decided to stick to Noodler’s Bulletproof Black ink in this pen. On the strength of these test drawings, I’m intending to use the pen for my Waterton comic strip project. It doesn’t lend itself to the Hergé Claire Ligne (clear line) technique which I so much admire but that’s not my natural style anyway, as I’m not as decisive and clear-thinking as Hergé.
I’m working with two very different comic strip artists on this project but we’re not aiming for a house style that is consistent across the three sections of the story. In fact the more my section looks like my own work the better.
Energy and Eccentricity
I’ve been reading my diary from forty years ago this month, in the summer of 1975, the year of my degree show at the Royal College of Art, and it reminds me of the energy that I used to put into my work. More energy than expertise, I’d say, I was waywardly ambitious, but there’s something charming about that, and the style lends itself to the energetic and eccentric Victorian character whose life I’m trying to evoke. I don’t want it to look like a facsimile Victorian naturalist’s notebook but I’m happy for it to have a rich, loosely cross-hatched ambience.
Links; Lamy pens at Pure Pens who supplied the pen and the Noodler’s ink.
Lamy AL-star pens and propelling pencils