I’ve been using pointed pen and ink now for about eight months and struggle with “too many variables” – nibs, inks, paper, state of my digestion, etc.! I’ve learned from this forum that it requires a lot of experimentation.
The illustrious
@jeanwilson had responded to my questions once, in part:
I taught for many years and Higgins is OK for beginners. Many students would already have it from previous classes. I would offer alternatives for them to try and most of the time, students would be thrilled with the progress they made after finding some more delicate inks. The easiest one is walnut ink …
This was so true for me -- I’d only been using Higgins Eternal but tried some different inks and, mirabile dictu, all of a sudden, my pen began to make letters! But then later the magic inks stopped being magic. I assumed, perhaps, evaporation and added water. Varying degrees of water with varying, inconsistent results. And sometimes the same ink would work well and other times not. I chalked this up to my inexperience and other variables.
When I say the ink works, I mean the nib seems to glide more smoothly without inconsistent “friction points.” When it doesn’t’ work, I’m not talking, necessarily, about “scratchy” nibs, but a difficulty in maintaining a consistent movement on the page.
I’ve seen threads on the forum about how to dilute or thicken inks, so my question is what does it feel like when an ink needs to be thinned … or thickened? Can you describe the symptoms, either in how it feels or how it looks, when the ink should be adjusted? And then, how do you approach the thinning or thickening to titrate it properly?