Looking for Dip-Pen Help

[Rob King]

One of my best friends got married this week. As a thank you for being in the wedding party he bought me a dip-pen and three bottles of fancy ink. It was an awesome gift: he's been one of the bigger supports in my effort to become a writer, and constantly makes fun of how anachronistic I like to be sometimes (shopping around for typewriters, doing laundry by hand sometimes for the fun of it, etc.)

Anyhow, I have no idea where to start. I can't even tell you what I have, I am so inexperienced in this, except for that the nib of the pen has a little number 2 on it, and the front of the pen is flat ... probably a millimeter and a half wide. I've been playing with it for about ten minutes now, and I can't get the ink to behave. It either comes out in huge torrents that bleed into the page (and pages beneath) or doesn't come out at all. I also didn't expect the ink to cling to the bottom of the nib, if that makes any sense. Is that a bad thing?

Does anyone have any calligraphy resources or anything that they could share with me. This is one of the coolest gifts I've gotten in a nice while, and I'd really like to make use of it!

 

[drifter]

I've never done any calligraphy, but I used to use a pen and nib for inking. Basically, just dip the nib far enough to fill the reservoir. Keep a piece of scratch paper handy to bleed off some of the excess and to get an idea of how well the ink is flowing. After that, it's mostly a matter of practice with regards to pressure and positioning. You do have to be somewhat careful about letting the ink dry out while in the nib, but it's nothing a little hot water can't fix. I should perhaps note that my experience with nibs is entirely with the cheap ones you can find in an art store, and not with any fancy writing implements.

 

[Element 117]

 

 

[Rob King]

Thanks, both of you. Bleeding off the excess ink is something I'll have to try, but I can imagine it solving a lot of my problems.