Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art and Writing

Sugar cane paper.

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So I have this thing for paper and am very picky about what journals and notebooks I'll use. They have to pass the binding test (does it fall open/stay open easily) and the paper test (is it too rough or does it have a glassy smooth finish).

The best papers I've found for writing are in Claire Fontaine and Rhodia and the papers that come from that same French mill. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find another really nice, slick paper.

At Staples office supply store, of all places.

In a low-cost Staples brand "green" display which had composition books and legal pads made from sugar cane fibers.

It's really nice stuff, oddly. Slick surface, great with pens and pencils. The color is a subtle off-white with tan lines on it -- nothing garish or distracting.

I bought several legal pads and composition books, and intend to make some into journals to sell online.

You should be able to find it still, though I can see they are moving it out. It was more a "back to school" seasonal thing.

Labels: stationery, supplies

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The small object.

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I love this site, The Small Object.

Besides having cool stuff to buy for paper-lovers like myself, the blog (called the Steno Pad) has lots of fun, free downloads.

You know I love that.

Go there.

Labels: free stuff, links, stationery, supplies

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Handmade and sarcastic stationery.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I'm always on the look for stationery. Letters, and the writing/sending/receiving of them, is an obsession of mine. Regular readers of this site know I frequently blog about writing letters, sending them, when I get them, and all the paraphernalia involved in making paper mail happen.

I recently stumbled across two web sites that offer some really great stationery. One is an Etsy site, which I've talked about before, and the other is called 16 Sparrows.

YourSecretAdmiral is the Etsy shop which features really cool, handmade creations. There are lots of fun notebooks and paperback books made out of envelopes and more. Etsy is filled with artists doing something similar, as far as creating really unique journals and stationery, so by all means, check out the whole site and find some cool stuff.

16 Sparrows (see their blog here) has stationery that appeals to me on many levels. For example, if I weren't doing most of my bill paying online, I would absolutely love to use the "blood money" envelopes that they have. Now, some of the designs are going to probably offend people (particularly the f**ing card series, or the Paddingken set which I like the looks of), but what kills me most is the use of graphics and design that are so staid while using words that throw it all off kilter. For example, in the mood for fake Private Detective stationery? Yep, they have it. There's even a set of sarcastic "from the desk of" stationery.

My favorite design, though, is the telegram stationery. I am also extremely appreciative of the "letter writer's alliance" stationery set (there's also a gift pack), which has a purpose that I fully agree with. I may just have to join the Letter Writers Alliance; they have a wonderful mission statement and lots of cool stuff.

To top it all off, they have free things for you right now.

Labels: links, stationery, supplies

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Pens and stationery.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I was asked, in the comments section of an earlier post, what I might recommend for stationery and pens. Since this sounds like the beginnings of a serious letter writer, I decided to do a quick blog post and throw out a few links.

Pens
I do enjoy an old-fashioned ink-dip pen with a good nib. The key is, of course, the nib. If the nib is cheap or rough, it cuts into the paper and sprays ink. I'm less worried about the look of the barrel as long as the nib is good.

Fountain pens are the next best thing. They do save you the trouble of the constant dipping into the ink well. My first fountain pen was in high school, a cheap plastic pink and purple A&W SizzleStix. It had ink cartridges and wrote very nicely, considering the price. I had a handful of pens that were my grandfathers, the older kind with a rubber ink bladder inside that filled with ink using a suction-draw method. Most of these, however, had aged to a point where the ink bladder was cracked.

During college, I picked up a few other fountain-type pens that were around the same low-price range. I like the Pilot Varsity, though I found the tip created a little wider line than I cared for. However, the ink flow was smooth. This pen, once the ink is gone, is thrown away. It is not refillable. I graduated up to the Berol Fontaine pen, and preferred it to the Pilot Varsity. The Fontaine had an extremely smooth writing quality about it -- very nice. It seems, though, that Berol has stopped making them despite the pen being very popular. I might be wrong, but I stopped seeing them in stores. It came in a number of great colors. It, too, was a disposable fountain pen. I only have a few left and am loathe to use them up. The Pilot Varsity is readily available online and in most stores that carry pens. It is still a good pen.

My first "serious" pen was a Lamy, compliments of an exchange student from Germany. She had one, I fell in love with it, so she sent me one and included a refillable cartridge that worked on a similar suction action but used a hard, plastic tube instead. I often use Pelikan ink with this pen. Lamy pens are a little more expensive than the SizzleStix, but very affordable once you start seeing the price of serious fountain pens, which start to hit the hundreds of dollars mark. Pelikan also makes some very nice pens of various price ranges.

I also have a Parker fountain pen that I picked up at WalMart. It's a good pen, though I always feel like either the pen or tip is just slightly bulky and I don't get the fine control I want. This pen uses ink cartridges.

When I'm not using a fountain pen, the pen I use -- and I have a well-stocked supply of them on hand as I use them up, so I must be serious about this pen -- is the fairly cheap but fine-writing Pentel Needle Tip Energel Liquid Gel Rollerball Pen (.5 mm tip). Might seem boring...but I've tried a lot of different pens off the rack and this is the one I keep coming back to. No complaints whatsoever. Fine line, smooth writing, fast-dry ink. All around good. I often use it for sketching when I don't want to drag around a lot of art materials.

My only suggestion with fountain pens is to use them often, or the ink will dry and clog in the tips. If you have a simple ink-dip pen, the tip is easily removed and cleaned. More extensive tips are a bit more challenging. I find that it's best if I store my pens (which are of the cheaper variety and not the $100+ type) tip-down in a vertical pen holder. Then the ink is ready to go. This would be a bad idea, though, if you have a faulty pen which leaks or pools ink. Writing with a fountain pen is a bit different than a ballpoint pen. (It's much better.)

Where to find pens:

Find on Ebay
A Pen Lover's Paradise
Lamy pens (USA)
Fahrney's Pens
Bittner Fine Pens (for serious pen lovers with money to burn)
Pilot Pens
Colorado Pens
Gold Spot
Parker Pens and Pencils

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Wonderful small art presses.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

On my recent trip, I found myself picking up a number of postcards and notecards in various shops. I certainly don't need more -- I generally suffer from an overabundance of stationery and no one to send it to (that is, no one that will write back). I often, as was the case this time, buy such unique items for their imagery and because it's like finding small treasures.

My most recent small-press finds include:

Kenspeckle Letterpress (Wonderful imagery and designs.)
Saturn Press (Not the actual, official website, but information on this press and the fabulous hand-set letter press products can be found by visiting the site linked.)

I'll add more to this post as I discover them. If you know of one, please leave information in the comments section of this post.

Labels: art, stationery

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Great journals and sketchbooks.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I've added two new sites to the blogroll, Moleskinerie and Notebookism. All I can say is that you should really visit these sites, but only when you have a large open block of time on your schedule. Because, if you're like me and are an obsessive hoarder and collector of journals, notebooks, paper, and pens/pencils, you'll find yourself completely drawn in.

And, speaking of journals and notebooks...

Moleskines
I have to admit that though I love Moleskine notebooks and sketchbooks, there are two things that I have a mild problem with:

The price tag is a little prohibitive. I only have a few of the books, and I mostly lean towards the soft cover versions (brown or black) because they are more affordable.
The paper. Moleskines have wonderful paper for ink, but for some other methods of sketching, such as watercolors or something that requires a little tooth to the paper, the pages are too smooth. My watercolor sketches tend to pool and not be absorbed well.

Finding a good journal or sketchbook
There are few things worse than a cheap journal or sketchbook that you have to fight to keep open. One of my policies (if there is such a thing in this case) when I buy a journal or sketchbook is to be sure I can open it in the store to see if it has a binding that literally falls open, as well as feel the paper to see what kind of tooth it has. So, the things I look for when shopping for a journal or sketchbook are:

That it opens easily to all pages (front, middle, back) and that it lays open on its own without a fight.
That the paper isn't too thin so that ink bleeds through to the pages behind it. Also, I like a stronger page that can take a little abuse in the form of scribbling, erasing, or water-based media.
That the paper has a surface quality that feels good against my hand. This is highly subjective, and that's why I won't buy a journal that I can't open and touch in the store.
That the journal isn't bound in such a way that it is tightly filled with pages. I often glue things like tickets or post cards or other items that are visually interesting, and journals that are so packed with pages end up not closing well or, worse, with a broken spine or binding. They don't close without me tearing out pages every so often to free up space for the addition of glued items.
I don't like journals that have pre-printed writing prompts, quotes, or images on the pages, generally. There are a few journals in my collection that have interesting art printed on the pages that I find fun to work with, but in general, I don't like a lot of canned "prompts" from some publisher.

Other great brands
A few of my other favorite journal brands are Rhodia (with its bright, orange cover) and Claire Fontaine (often seen in plaid or block-color covers). Both are French brands, oddly. They have the most amazingly smooth, plate finish paper that makes your pen seem to fly over the paper. Really, writing in them is a lovely experience. The feel of the paper against your hand is one that paper lovers like myself can really appreciate.

Videos
I have a few videos (somewhat grainy videos, so I apologize) over at YouTube of me flipping through a few of my journal/sketchbooks. You can get an idea of what I use them for if you are so inclined.

You
What are your favorite journal or sketchbook brands? Why? What do you look for in a journal or sketchbook?

Links:

Kikkerland: The American distributor of Moleskine, and other extremely cool stuff. Period.
Moleskine
Exaclair, Inc.: This site offers both Rhodia and Clair Fontaine, as well as a number of other favorite stationery/pen brands of mine.
Basic French Online: This site offers a variety of "French" products, and in the stationery section, you can find a decent selection of notebooks and stationery.
Paper Blanks: Decent journals that kind of mimic Moleskine. The plus is that they fall open easily and are a pleasure to write in. I'm not always keen on the printed covers, but they are a nice journal.
Chronicle Books: This publisher puts out a large variety of books and products. They have a number of great stationery and journals that are fun and unusual.
Exaclair, Inc.'s "where to purchase" list is a fabulous collection of great web sites offering pens, paper, journals, stationery and all things wonderful.
Papyrus has a lot of nice stuff. My favorites are the simple Marcel Schurman notebooks on this page, which look like something from many decades ago. I have a few in tan, though they only show red and blue now. The look like the notebooks from the movie "The Interpreter" (notebooks that I wish I could find and have been trying to figure out the brand -- anyone out there know?)

Labels: art, journals, links, stationery, supplies, writing

Sugar cane paper.

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The small object.

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Handmade and sarcastic stationery.

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Pens and stationery.

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Wonderful small art presses.

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Great journals and sketchbooks.

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