On books, pens and paints

[sstormwatch]

Well, the two books finally arrived. And of course they sent me the tracking info from their end today as well. They stated originally that the books were shipped on the 5th. Then their tracking info states it was shipped on the 7th. I don't know what to believe

Comments

[ciorstan]

Oh, and incidentally-- Rotrings come with the nib 'cut' straight across. There is no angle on the tip of the nib. One is expected to either wear it down from use or burnish it down with a stone.

I have never messed with the straight angle of my Rotrings-- they were left as is when I bought 'em new. Love them, love them, love them.

On the other hand, I don't believe in sharing pens. Through use, one individually shapes the nib through the way the individual holds the pen and presses down on the paper. Eventually the pen will conform to that person's use. If you lend your pens to someone else, you WILL notice that they don't quite perform in exactly the same way when you get them back.

It's a subtle thing, but I'm the sort of person who notices things like that. It was also a particularly stressed 'point' of information in a class I took from Mark Van Stone mumble-odd many years ago-- who was Mark Drogin's teacher. Drogin is the author of the "Medieval Calligraphy" book sold by Dover (though mine is a hardback first edition from the original publisher prior to Dover's publication) that is by and large the SCA primer on calligraphy hands.