Write Something

We guess it started with letter writing.

There was a time when we decided to write letters when we were staying in hotels using said hotel's provided stationery to the Chief (if we were on our own) or to others. We wrote to Alex at one point, and one fine day he sent a picture message of the Lamy Joy pen he bought to write back.

The Lamy Joy. An italic nib pen meant for italic or blackletter calligraphic writing. Since calligraphy demands practice to obtain pretty penmanship, we never ever got that letter from Alex.

Well, it was Alex who introduced said pen to us anyways, and somewhere not too long back we finally bought the same pen. It was great fun (although we didn't put it to much use ourself). and since it was our first attempt at using an italic nib, we decided to play safe and picked the 1.5 mm nib to practise with.

Not too long later we bought the 1.1 mm nib as well, swapping between the two depending on which we felt like writing with. Personally we're finding the 1.1 mm nib very comfortable to write with, even for normal day-to-day writing.

Then a friend saw what we were doing and caught the calligraphy bug herself, and next thing you know we finally found out about flex nibs - we were too lazy to search them up before and never knew the actual term to call them, instead describing them as 'nibs for copperplate writing' and also probably asking in the wrong places.

Also, to be honest we weren't to enthusiastic to invest more into flex nibs and oblique holders and such because they require a lot of effort to get good penmanship and isn't really all that practical. At least with the Lamy Joy we can do some rather nice uncial fonts asides from italic text when we send greeting cards or write birthday cards or something.

It was only after we started checking out the price of flex nibs and such that it didn't seem too expensive to try it out. And so...we got ourself some nibs (the Nikko G for beginners), a normal nib holder, ink and some pretty thick paper, and we're now practising calligraphy.

Right now we're learning to get used to the nib and all, so our penmanship ain't pretty, and soon we'll have to get back to basics and practise drawing lines and curves until we're consistent (right now just trying it out freehand our letters are all in different angles and heights and spacing it's a nightmare really).

Good grief, so much work. WHY.

Because it's pretty. Much prettier than using an italic nib. So let's see if we can stick to it.