Calligraphy video, song by Sweet Billy Pilgrim.
This video features a lot of pens, for different effects. Not in the picture is a Sailor taka nuri. Most of them have “performer” nibs – not ideal for daily use, but capable of acrobatics. From left to right: European no-name overlay, Sheaffer TD with a flexible medium nib, Jewel BCHR, Waterman safety, two cool pens with vintage Eversharp nibs from Peyton Street Pens, Hicks ED, Nakaya tortoiseshell chinkin, Edison Mina, dip pen (handle from e+m, nib is vintage Esterbrook Falcon).
I am the lucky custodian of two vintage flexible music nibs. (“Vintage” there might be an unneeded adjective, there are no modern flexible music nibs.)
The Hicks eyedropper has a flexible nib and a hard rubber overfeed. It is a very early fountain pen, and you can see how its makers still thought in terms of dip pens. The Sheaffer TD nib is quite flexible, which is unusual for Sheaffer. The nib on the Jewel pen is a “wet noodle” flexible stub with an overfeed, which ensures the nib doesn’t run out of ink and “railroad” when being flexed.
Because I use a lot of water to add movement, ink colors end up mixing all over the paper and there’s never really any pure, straight from the bottle color. For this video, the inks used included Platinum Mix-Free Silky Violet, Pilot Iroshizuku kosumosu, Private Reserve Avacado, R&K Helianthus, Sailor Tokiwa Matsu, and J. Herbin’s red anniversary ink.
