I reviewed Scribal's Siren Blue ink a few months back. I used this ink almost exclusively in my recent grad school class. Except when my pen wouldn't write because it had dried out.

This is a perfectly colored ink, PERFECT. I would buy this ink in a quart size if only it's flow and lubrication were better. This ink makes my normally smooth pens feel scratchy and like I'm wearing off the tipping. It also makes my wet pens feel like they flow erratically and slowly, making them dry writers. It also makes every pen I've had it in a hard starter, even the pens with air tight caps. Pens that I've never had starting issues with, start hard, and often need water added to the nib to get them going. Frustrating.

Here are a few thigns I've tried:
5ml ink + 10 drops water (poor)
5ml ink + 2 drops dish soap (poor)
Decant 5ml of ink into a small container, add .5ml distilled water and 2 drops dish soap.(winner) This last option makes the ink flow much better but has worse performance on bad paper- more feathering and bleed. But it starts better, though not well or perfectly.

I am considering adding 1ml Camlin turq to 5ml Siren or 1 ml blue quink to 5ml Siren to see what I get. As is, nothing can flow as bad as the Siren on it's own.

I love this ink's color and qualities but damn if I can't keep my pens writing in grad school I'm screwed!

***UPDATE***
Immediately after writing this I mixed 1ml camlin turq + 1ml Quink blue + 5ml Siren. The color is indistinguishable from the original and the flow is better, dry out is gone, and my pens no longer feel like they are being sandpapered. Winner. I immediately mixed up 30ml of this blend. It iwll be my go to ink for school. Now I need another bottle of Siren.

I like composition books. A throw back to simplier rtimes I hated them as a kid becuase I could only find wide rule and I prefer college rule. As an adult I'm more likely to ignore the lines and just write where I feel like. I like to have one in the garage for my bike notes and to do lists. I keep them all over the house. (Not sure how C feels about this.) They have many uses doodles, sketching and writing. They are also dirt cheap. This time of year you can get them in Staples for $1 each and Walmart has some for 50 cents. The real question for me is , "How do all these comp books stack up against one another?"

A few weeks back I reviewed to much dismay the Staples Sustainable Earth comp book. It was a bummer because I really enjnoy the brown lines, the feel of the paper, and overall the quality of the book, but not being able ot use fountain pens with it makes it a deal killer. I won't buy another one.

So I'm searching out compbooks that work with my fountain pens. I've done a lot of reading that you need to keep an eye on where they are made, with Brazil as the best country of origin.

Let's start out with the rank and horrible.

Mead Five Star College Ruled with the plastic covers.
The paper feels nice, pens glide but feather and bleed like writing on TP. No country of origin listed. Was more expensive than the rest.

Mead Wide Ruled Fasion Pattern Covers Made in Vietnam
nice stiff covers in a variety of funky patterns, also available college ruled. Some inks did horribly on this paper others did well. Bleed through was intolerable but feathering was okay.

Norcom Fashion Pattern Covers Wide Rule Made in USA Walmart
Covers are flimsy but nice patterns. Paper feels smooth and nice but feathers and bleeds like crazy. even well bahaved inks don't do well on it. It's too bad I'd like to buy made in the US paper. These were on sale at Walmart for 50 cents.

Norcom Original Covers College Rule Made in USA Walmart
Covers are flimsy. Paper feels smooth and nice but
feathers and bleeds like crazy. even well bahaved inks don't do well on
it. It's too bad I'd like to buy made in the US paper. These were on sale at Walmart for 50 cents.

Now let's talk about the acceptable and good.

Staples Quad Comp Graph Rule Made in Egypt
Okay covers. Paper feels nice. Pens like it. Slight feathering with some inks but most fair better than average. Plenty of bleed through, making only one side of the paper usable. On sale at Staples for $1.

Tops Brand Standard Marble Cover Wide Rule Made in Vietnam
Flimsy cover. Paper is smooth and feels great under the pen. No feathering, no bleed through. Both side usable with right pen. Regularly priced at 97 cents at Target. (For what it's worth, I've been told I totally lucked out on the Made in Vietnam book being good, usually it's the Made in Brazil Tops that is good. So your mileage may vary on this one.)

Staples "Fashion" Cover Wide Rule Made in Brazil (Item number 19187)
Okay covers, not the most sturdy. Patterns are neat. Paper feels smooth and pens like it. No feathering even with my Ahab. Bleed through is acceptable. On sale for $1.

Staples "Marble" Cover College Rule Made in Brazil (Item number 40451)
Sturdy covers. Paper feels smooth and
pens like it. No feathering even with my Ahab. Bleed through is
acceptable. On sale for $1.

Have you used a composition notebook that you particularly loved? Let me know about it in the comments.

I’ve been doing a lot of doodling. One of my all time favorite cheap-o pens for doodling is the Uni-ball Vision Fine Point. It’s smooth, dark black ink flows well and doesn’t bleed when wet. So I can flood a wash of watercolor over it when I’m done sketching and doodling. It’s a great pen. You can get them just about anywhere for about $1 to $2 per pen. Not a bad deal.

C likes to use a medium point pen versus my needle point pens. She likes a nice smooth point so I usually stick with the Uniball pens, but I happened into Staples and found they had the Zebra Sarasa retractable pens in 0.7 black ink on sale, so I bought a pack of 12. They came in a nice plastic case for storage. It would easily be useful for storing a pen assortment. I believe the sale was for $9.99. With no sale they can be found for about $1 a pen. They are also available in a wide assortment of colors.

Why do I like these pens? First off they are dirt cheap in the arena of waterproof/resistant pens. The ink is dark and doesn’t erase off the page when cleaning up pencil. The pen itself is as comfortable to use as any other clicky ball point, the build and construction is similar to
the Pilot G2, but I find that I get skipping with the G2 but none with the Sarasa. In other words the ink is smooth, dark and flows well when compared to other gel ink pens. Also one of the issues I have with the G2 is that it develops bubbles in the ink and then doesn’t work. The
Sarasa doesn’t seem to suffer from this effect, which is good.

In short a fantastic pen for art purposes, especially given the price.

I’ve
been debating whether or not I should make my own notebooks for school
or if I should just buy them. I decided to pick up a few composition
notebooks to see how the various brands fared with fountain pens. I’ve
been a fan and have used the Staples Sustainable Earth composition
notebooks for around the garage and workbench thinking notebooks for
hacking out designs on my bike builds and other things. I’ve been a big
fan of them for awhile. While out picking up some supplies I grabbed a
new one figuring it was a safe bet for school. It seems that Staples has
changed the composition of the paper just a tad. It’s now 80% bagasse,
or sugarcane. I’m not sure what it was before but this paper has some
major differences. I compared it to a page from an old Sustainable Earth
legal pad.

The
old paper wasn’t super smooth but it was nice and performance with a
fountain pen was awesome. Line width was true to the nib, no feathering,
no soak through but there was show through. It was a great inexpensive
paper that was easy to find anywhere. 100 sheets was $2.49 anywhere in
the US. It was available in legal pads too, which were a favorite of
mine for taking notes while on the phone at work, and now for working on
ideas for classes and my writing. This paper was awesome.

The
new paper is not as smooth as the old paper. I tested both sides of the
page and while one side is slightly smoother than the other, it’s not
as smooth as the old. Line width is not true to the nib size. My medium
pen looks like a bold and my EF a medium. Feathering was rampant with
many inks. Noodler’s Eternal Brown feathered badly. Diamine Chocolate
feathered so much as to be unusable. Private reserve Sonic Blue was a
mess. Soak through was awful, many inks, normally well behaved inks,
soaked through to the page behind, leaving spots on the unused page.
Soak through was as bad as if I had used Sharpies to write. Given my
enjoyment of ink variety this is a deal killer for me.

I
decided to test the paper would with a variety of pencils and pens.
Pencil was great on the paper, it was rough enough to take a nice dark
line with mechanical pencils as well as regular wooden pencils. I tested
out a Zebra Sarasa 0.7 in black ink. It soaked through. Yes, gel ink
soaked through in some spots.

I
deem the new Staples Sustainable Earth Composition Notebook to be the
most useless notebook of the year, unless you use only pencil. Well, I might see if I can cut pages out to use as thin blotter paper, it might be useful like that, but I doubt it would do a good job at that either.

I
have been holding out on getting one of the oft lauded Palomino
Blackwing pencils. I don’t know why I held out for so long. All my
friends said they were great and I knew I loved the Palomino pencils I
already owned.  I snagged a couple from a friend just to see what they
were all about and not sure what to expect. I’m not going to go into the
history of the pencil, you can read all about that here. I suspected going into this that this would be a good review. I've got
many other Palomino pencils and I really enjoy their velvety smooth
graphite core.

When
I opened the package they were secured in some bubble wrap. When I
peeled that away I was presented with some very unique looking pencils.
The black paint on the Blackwing was matte and a nice black. the
printing of the logo was crisp, though not indented and I could see
where it was starting to flake off already. That doesn’t matter to me
but occasionally I’ll notice a fleck of gold on my hand as I use the
pencil. Like fairy dust…

The
part of the pencil’s look that is the most noticeable is the ferrule
that holds the eraser and the eraser itself. The Blackwing comes with a
rectangular white plastic eraser set into a rectangular ferrule that
turns round to attach to the pencil itself. It’s pretty cool and totally
unique. (Of course the history lesson here will tell you it’s NOT
unique, but I shall only say here, it’s unique to the market TODAY.) The
eraser is easily removed and replaced should you wear it down to a
nubbin. You can buy a 12-pack in white, pink, or black. I found the
white eraser to work but was not the most effective eraser. I rarely use
erasers on the end of my pencils but I found myself using these because
they are cool.

The
pencil sharpened easily with my KUM long point sharpener. It held that
point through a sketching session without breaking at any pressure. The
graphite was smooth and dark. Not a scratchy bit to be found during any
of my sketching times. Light pressure yielded a nice result and heavy
pressure a deep dark mark. Variation in tone was easily possible simply
through varying my pressure and layering.

I
also had a pair of Blackwing 602 pencils in my package. These have a
nice gray paint job and black erasers. The graphite was slightly harder
and lighter. It was just as smooth as the regular Blackwing. The black
eraser seemed to be slightly gritty but erased much better than the
white erasers. Sharpening was a breeze and thought I filled pages in my
sketchbook I had no breaks nor crumbles.

I
also did a little writing with these pencils, just because I had to.
Little pressure produced a nice line. The regular blackwing produced a
nice dark line even with little pressure. The 602 needed to be sharpened
less often. Both were silky smooth to use.

Overall
these 2 pencils are amazing for sketching or writing. They are
attention grabbing that’s for sure. I know I saw someone in the coffee
shop eyeing my pencils, so I made sure they were secured when I stepped
away…

You can get these pencils from the European Paper Company here.

I purchased these pencils for review, they were not provided to me by European Paper Company, however if you purchase them through the provided link I will be compensated.