Tag: Tower Pen

Green Pepper

I’m drawing this with a scratchy dip pen with an F. Collins & Co. Tower Pen brass nib, made in Manchester. The elegant pen holder, which I bought in France, has a satisfyingly robust brass ferule at the business end and a dangerously sharp point at the end that is nearest your eye.

Tower Pen handwriting

I’m using Rohrer’s Black which, of course, isn’t as free-flowing as the inks that I use in my Lamy fountain pens but it has a dense ‘inky blackness’.

green pepper

It felt awkward drawing the pepper, as if I was drawing everything overhand. Perhaps if I’d been drawing it facing the other way, the curves would have felt more natural to draw: they might have sloped more naturally, like the slope of cursive handwriting.

Home-grown

But the scratchy line suited the wayward growth of the plant. I grew it from the seeds of a pepper from the supermarket, using our own home-made compost.

We’ve had only two peppers and we’ve used them green as they were showing no sign of turning yellow or red. They’re not as fleshy as the supermarket variety, but they’ve got more of a fresh crunch to them.

We grew peppers last year from seeds that a neighbour gave us. This year’s have a better flavour: last year’s were rather bitter, perhaps because of the weather or the variety.

Tower Pen

I’m enjoying trying out these vintage nibs and this latest is as good as any I’ve tried so far – or am I getting more accustomed to drawing with a dip pen?

The Tower Pen No.11 was manufactured by F. Collins & Co Ltd, Prestwich, Manchester. I’m lucky to have box full each (144 nibs) of the gilt and bronze versions, in fact the bronze version is unopened. Enough nibs to last me a lifetime, provided I live to be 250 years old and draw every day!

I’d characterise this nib as being the most elegant I’ve tried so far, so I’d have to imagine Henry James writing with it rather than Bob Cratchit.

That bloomin’ booklouse makes another walk-on appearance! I blew him off the sketchbook but no doubt he or she will trundle across my sketchbook again the next time I’m filming.