4 Replies to “Memories of Utah”

  1. Wow, this is beautiful. I’m sure it took you quite awhile. What kind of pen(s) did you use?

  2. Thank you, Carolyn. The pens are Rapidograph by Koh-I-Noor, size 000 (0.25mm), 5 and 7. Koh-I-Noor also sells ink for them, but I found that pens work fine with Sumi-E ink that is more common in my local art stores.

    They require manual cleaning after the ink in the cartridge is used up and then manual refilling. Cleaning can be a bit messy, and you better not to leave a pen laying around for long or the ink will start to dry and the needle start to clog up. On the up side, Rapidograph does not require you to buy cartridges, and it produces very consistent lines and dots.

    You can buy a set of different sizes or just a single pen. I got myself a set when my first 000 pen broke but don’t have much use for other sizes.

    The only serious problem that I have with these pens is that are said to be a problem with traveling. Changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure may cause them to leak. Never happened to me, but I would like to find a safer replacement just for traveling. Unfortunately, all felt pens that I tried so far do not produce black that is as dark as Koh-I-Noor or Sumi-E ink

  3. Thanks for the info Yelena. I have only tried the Rotring type of Koh-I-Noor pens, which have their own cartidges. But I will look into the manual refilling type. I use dip pens mostly, but would love these pens for stippling especially.

  4. I use dip pens too sometimes. They make beautifully expressive marks that no fiber-tip pen or even Rapidograph can match.

    Rotring are not Hoh-I-Noor, it’s a separate brand. I had their 0.25 pen, and it was pretty nice, but I didn’t like the the dependency on buying cartridges.

    Do you know of any fiber-tip pens with really dark black ink? I think I tried everything under the sun and still got nothing.

Leave a Reply