Monday, August 2, 2010

Nib Love

A few months back, talented kid book author/illustrator and e-pal o' mine Frank Dormer, read a line on my blog where I was whining on about the love/hate relationship I have for my nibs of choice. He very graciously offered to send me a fistful of the nibs he's had good luck with. I got Frank's nibs in the mail and was ever so thankful, but had to set them aside to keep up work with the sketches, sketches, sketches (the pencil, not the pen).

Fast forward to now and I finally had a minute to settle down with these new nibs. Man they are like butter! Glide across the paper. Ink flows like dang water. Line thickness is all over the place (that's a good thing) and ever so easy to control. I asked Frank where he got these and he said he bought a box at an art supply shop 20 years ago. Gulp. Better handle these babies with care.


Below is a sample of how they drive. Plus another drawing I did with a brush from my dirty ink water (used to wash up the pen afterward). Just for kicks.






Thanks again, Frank! Us pen/inkers gotta stick together for sure.

2 comments:

Tiffany Strelitz Haber said...

a nib is a teeny pencil? so cool!

Matthew Cordell said...

Hi Tiffany--nibs are pen tips. There's all kinds of different shapes and widths. Some are really hard, some are really flexible. So different ones make different looking lines. This is maybe only interesting to us nerds who love (and sometimes hate) drawing in pen and ink.