Watercolour Doodling

Fifteen minutes or so of messing about with watercolour pencils, drawing a little fox playing in the rain.

 

Quite pleased with the colour blending, the tones &c less so (the darker parts of the wash are a bit random).  Also, I shouldn't have added highlights to his tail with a gel pen, it looks wrong.

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A Daily Carry for National Stationery Day

It is, apparently, national stationery day today, so here's what came with me to work in the Carradice today;

Some Paper, Today.

Top left - on top, a Rhodia No.11 pad, with 5x5 bloc paper (in a Rhodia e-Pure cover), my pocket Filofax, & plain Moleskine pocket reporter (being used up for pencil sketches &c). Rightmost is my Nomadic PE-10 pencil case.  Bottom left is a square WH Smith sketchpad, and underneath them all is an A5 Black 'n' Red notebook (that actually stays at work).

The No.11 Rhodia pads are great for sticking in a back pocket & carrying about for quick notes &c.  They have really nice, fountain pen friendly paper too.

I use the Filofax for organising both calendar, and, in the notes pages at the back, tasks (using a modified GtD type system).  I find the Pocket is better than the Personal (slightly too large) or mini (much to small) for bike carriage, personally.

You might think it odd that I carry a Moleskine, given my much tweeted disdain for their paper - having paid for the thing before I knew better, I'm determined to use it up.  Besides, pencil works ok on it, after all.

The WH Smith sketchpad isn't normally resident in this bag, but I had an idea I'd hoped to work on at lunch today that its square format is perfect for.

Some pens, pencils &c Today.

Most of these live in the Nomadic case - the exception is the leftmost pen, a Pelikan Steno that resides in the pen loop of my pocket Filofax.  Sadly discontinued, this is a terrific little pen with an interesting extra fine flexible nib.  Its intended use is shorthand notation (Pitman), and the flex allows the line variation this script relies on to convey meanings.  This pen is filled with the businesslike Pelikan Blue/Black ink, this, and the EF nib are a great combination for the small spaces in my planner.

Next along the line is a Staedtler Marsmicro mechanical pencil.  This is the 0.9mm version, with Pentel AIN lead (B grade).  

Then we have the Uni Ball Signo Broad, with white Pigment ink.  A lot of fun on dark papers, and one of the few white ink pens to lay down a nicely opaque line.

Next to the Signo is my old Staedtler Marsmatic (0.5mm).  I filled this in a fit of nostalgia, having forgotten just how scratchy it is - once I've run the ink down, I think it'll go back in the pen drawer.

A trio of Stainless Steel Parker Jotters is next. Ballpoint (with a Parker Gel ink refill, much nicer than the standard one), fountain pen (filled with Parker Quink Black, this writes a wet, medium width line), and pencil (0.5mm Pentel AIN lead, in 2H grade).

Lastly, a Staedtler Rasoplast eraser, and a cartridge that's probably Diamine Dark Brown, and one that definitely is.

Some stuff, today.

At the top of the picture are my post-it index tabs. I find these really useful for marking pages.

Below those are three cartridges, Parker Quink black, Lamy black, and Lamy purple.

Next is my blue Worther Shorty clutch pencil.  I love these little things, and have three - they take a soft (7B) 3.15mm lead, and are great for quick, loose sketches.

Below that is my Rotring Esprit - an interesting telescopic mini pen (although not as compact as something like the Kaweco Sport).  Long discontinued under the Rotring name, they were briefly sold as the Parker Esprit (also discontinued).  They still turn up "new old stock" on eBay from time to time.  Mine is filled with Monteverde Burgundy ink at the moment.

Then we have my Schneider Base - despite the limitation of coming in medium (or left handed medium) only, this is an inexpensive, reliable daily writer.  At the moment, it has Diamine Turquoise in, a colour just the right side of business like, but fun nonetheless.  It's my only "left handed" pen.

Lastly, a Lamy Vista.  Essentially a transparent Safari, this is a wonderfully reliable workhorse pen.  Mine has an EF nib (again, those small planner spaces), but the beauty of the Lamy Safari, Vista and AL-Star is that nibs are readily swapped in and out, right up to the wide calligraphy nibs used by the Lamy Joy pens.  I'd recommend getting your Safari or Vista from the link (I get no kickback from that) as The Writing Desk will ship with the nib width you request (even the calligraphy nib) saving you £4 buying the nib separately.  Their price for Vistas, Safaris and Al-Stars with convertors (for using bottled ink) is excellent too. 

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Mrs Monkey Craft Special: Bear in a Bag

This is one of Mrs. M's latest projects;

The bag is hand sewn, with a handy clue as to who's inside stitched on the label;

It's a little bear, with his own little bear.  

Both bears, the large bear's clothes (dungarees, a jumper & shoes) and a shoulder bag that the small bear goes in are hand knitted by Mrs Monkey, who really is a much cleverer simian than me.  

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I Misunderstood "Draw Something"

But it seems a shame to waste this Monkey in a Top hat.

 

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Endura Hummvee Short (2008) - End of Life Update

Bought From: Chain Reaction Cycles

Price Paid: £35.99 (in 2008)

Note: The review refers to the short version of the 2008 Hummvee, not the 3/4 version.

On my commute, I quite often wear a pair of baggies over whatever bib 3/4s or bib shorts, largely for the pocket space, which is handy for stashing my train ticket, bike computer (whilst not riding) etc.

My last pair were Altura Ascent shorts, which were ok, but their pockets didn't survive scraping along the tarmac at 20 miles an hour, and so a replacement pair were needed. Having read around a bit, I decided to go for the Endura Hummvee, on the basis that they met my main requirement (lots of pockets, some of which can be closed by zips) very well.

First Impressions:

The fabric of the shorts is very nice indeed, and feels slightly nicer than the Ascent's swimming shorts like material (there is some of this stuff in the Humvees, but it seems to be on the back of the shorts. The Pocket arrangement is two zipped hip pockets, two velcro tabed rear pockets (large enough for a folded OS map), a key clip, a flap + velcro cargo type pocket on the left, and a zipped cargo pocket on the right. The cargo pockets aren't the cavernous size of the pockets on the Ascent short, but fit my ID card for work and train ticket in quite nicely.

You also get zips with mesh behind at the outside side of each thigh (open the zip to allow more airflow though the legs of the shorts) and velcro tabs on the short legs to close them up if things get a bit chilly. This last feature seems a bit superfluous to me, and probably of more use on a 3/4 short, but you never know...

The only reflectives on the shorts are a printed Endura logo on the belt tab, which seems a little pointess to me (it's covered by your jersey).

Also worth noting is the sizing, which seems more or less spot on. A year of cycling has seen my waist drop from 34" to 32", and the medium humvee (30-32) fits nicely (Altura's medium is far too large for me) - the belt on the shorts seems good too, not the overly thin, easily twisted afterthought that you get on Altura's Ascent short.

In Use:

I should preface these remarks by saying that I don't use the Hummvee's liner - that said, the "clickfast" system seems pretty good, and I would think it would hold the liner in place well if you did decide to use it.

The pockets seem to be well arranged, and I've not noticed any discomfort whilst riding (wallet in the hip pocket, train ticket in the right cargo pocket). I've not used the rear pockets as yet, and don't use the key clip - landing on hard, sharp things like keys if you do come off is no fun at all, and I'd suggest not carrying anything like this in shorts or jersey pockets.

Edit: Just rode in them for the first time in rain - that lovely soft touch fabric is not particularly good in the wet - it ends up holding a fair bit of water and feeling quite clammy. The shorts did dry out fairly quickly, but the way they felt when wet would put me off riding in the 3/4 length version in the rain. (Not too bad in the short version because the wet part is against whatever lycra you're wearing underneath).

In Summary:

Quite expensive (it seems to me) but well thought out, comfortable and practical baggies. The cargo pockets could be bigger, (if the ventilation zips were omitted) but they're adequate.

Update (March 2012):

I'm just about to retire these shorts, after nearly four years of daily commuting duty (2hrs per day, 28 miles in the saddle).  In that time, they've needed two repairs, both to a seam on the left leg that eventually (after three years plus) wore through.  My trying to make the second repair using wonder web, with an overly hot iron, put an irreparable hole in them.  Leg seam aside, the shorts have worn very well over the four or so years of use.

I still like the Hummvee, although I hope that Endura have improved the stitching of the velcro on the rear pockets, which had come adrift within a couple of weeks of using the shorts (a niggle really, I didn't use those much).  The shorts now retail at a slightly eyewatering £45, or about £11.25 - £15 per year of commuting, I suppose - they also come in a snappy camouflage "colourway".

There's nothing quite as good, pocket wise, as the Hummvee at a comparable price, although having to pay for a liner I never use has irked me to the point that their replacement will be a pair of 3/4 Zymes, at least initially.  Liner complaints aside, I can see myself getting another pair of Hummvee's at some point, they really are very good.

Review: Black N Red Day Per Page Diary (2012)

One of the habits I've tried to sustain this year is writing *something* about my day, each day.  A diary (as in a proper diary sometimes called a daily planner, with printed dates on each page) makes this a bit easier for me - an unprinted book would doubtless lead me into the most terrible backsliding.

So far, I've used Moleskine Daily Planners (2009, 2010, pocket size - they've been surprisingly ok, given how poor the paper is in their notebooks, but are expensive) and a Ciak Daily Planner (2011).  The Ciak was a bit disappointing, with thin paper that had a lot of show & bleedthrough through for some inks.

For 2012, I bought a Black N Red Day to Page diary in the A5 size.  UK readers with decent stationery cupboards will be familiar with Black N Red, who make a series of spiral bound and casebound notebooks that are generally well regarded.  The diaries use a 90gsm "Optik" paper, and come in a range of sizes up to A4 (which seems to me to be massive - even I would struggle to fill an A4 page with my pointless wibbling each day).

The front cover - I think the "Oxford" logo is new, I can't remember seeing it on Black N Red products before.

The rear cover is rather busier, with product information, barcode, and so on.

The diary is casebound, with stitched signatures, and the cover is a nicely textured cloth over board.  The contrasting spine appears taped, although it isn't. A red woven ribbon is glued into the binding for use as a place marker.  All of the pages (save the end papers) have perforated corners, which you can remove to allow quick location of the current day (assuming you remove the corners after each day, of course).

A Sample Page

The diary begins with a page for contact details, followed by a two page year planner for 2012.  After the planner, it's straight into the daily pages, an example of which is above. Note that Black N Red don't put Saturday and Sunday on one page, which some daily planners do to save space. At the end of the diary (the last dated page is 3rd January 2013) is another two page year planner (for 2013), a page of country information, a page of weights and measures and mileages, a page of international telephone codes and time zones and then 6 pages for notes.  It's fairly restrained in this respect, (no tube map, for example) and I quite like that, having never really appreciated the pages and pages of junk I never use that crops up at the beginning and end of some dairies.

The main diary pages have three months of calendar on the top left hand side, showing the previous month, current month and coming month.  The main part of the page has appointment times from 07:00 to 20:00, split into half hours.  Below this are "Quick Note" spaces.  (I should say that I don't use these planning features, I just write on the pages, so can't really comment on how useful it is).  Lines are dark ruled, at a fairly narrow 5mm spacing - the paper is a bright white that ink shows up very nicely on. 

The amount of writing space is slightly larger than my medium Ciak planner (much larger if one writes beyond the lines and into the notes spaces on the Black N Red pages), despite the Black N Red being a larger book.  This is because of the rather busier page layout in the Black N Red diary - I don't think it's fair to criticise that, because the product is, I think, intended to be a planner rather than a journal or personal diary.

I bought my diary from Ryman, for £9.99, although they're fairly widely available, and the price doesn't seem to vary much between stockists.

Note that I've done my ink tests on the "Notes" pages at the back of the diary - I'm assuming the paper quality is consistent throughout.

INK TESTS

Showthrough (how visible your writing is with a blank page over it).

On showthrough, I think the diary is slightly less impressive than this scan shows - not terrible, but there is some ghosting through the facing page.

Bleedthrough (how much of the writing is visible on the reverse of the written page).

It's a similar story on bleedthrough, although the scan gives a fairer (possibly *slightly* unfair) picture here.  There's a small amount of ghosting, with the beginnings of bleedthrough at a couple of points from Amazing Amethyst and Pousserie De Lune ink.

The written page.

Close ups - the lower set of inks.

And the top set.

I think the ink tests tell the best story of this paper though - compare inks like Amazing Amethyst, Pousserie De Lune and Havana Brown with their performance in previous reviews, and the superiority of Black N Red's paper is evident.  I can't make out any feathering, even from problem inks in close ups, and for that, I'll put up with the small amount of ghosting on facing and reverse pages.

IN SUMMARY

For the page count, and the cost, I think the Black N Red diary is a great buy - the paper is better than any day per page diary I've used, and it costs less than a lot of premium daily planners/diaries.  If you can live with the slightly utilitarian styling (these books always remind me of being at work, but that could just be an association I have), busy page layout, and lack of premium notebook fripperies (soft cover, rounded corners, elastic closure &c) you'll not regret getting one.

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Notebook Review - Staples Eco Notebook, A5

The Staples "Eco Easy" notebook is a spiral bound notebook, with 160 ruled pages (80 sheets), and board covers. Its pages are Bagasse paper, made from 80% recycled sugar cane processing waste, hence the "Eco" title. I bought mine in their Manchester store, for the rrp of £2.49. The cover you see in the picture above is a brown paper foldover cover, that can be removed to reveal a plainer board cover.

For those of you worried about the variability of the paper in these (mentioned in some other reviews) the product code on this notebook is #37537-EU

The front of the book, with a Moleskine pocket notebook on it for scale.

Inside the front cover is a "pocket page" formed from a heavier brown paper page, folded back on itself with a third or so of the lower portion folded up to make a crude pocket. It's not something I'd use, personally, but I rarely use the pockets in other notebooks, so may not be the best judge of the utility of this feature!

The sheets are perforated, and double punched to allow them to be removed and stored in ring binders.

The binding, again with a Moleskine pocket notebook for scale.

The spiral binding is done with what seems to me to be a pretty big coil - my personal feeling is that this makes the book a bit of a pain to carry around, although the pages do turn easily compared to books with more compact spirals (Pukka Pads, for example). The spiral doesn't seem to interfere with writing on the page, so long as you write to the long side of the perforation and margin; you may find it more problematic if you like to use the entire page. The beefiness of the coil does give me some confidence that it wouldn't be damaged by relatively rough treatment - you could throw this pad in the bottom of a bag, and be reasonably confident you could still turn the pages after the rest of your posessions had tried to squash the spiral!

The paper is an orangey sort of cream colour to my eye, and the ruling is a complimentary orangey brown, spaced at 8mm. A margin is ruled on the left of the page, at 14.5 mm from the perforation, and 29mm from the bound side's edge of the page. My feeling is that paper has more "tooth" (the "scratchy" feeling as a nib moves over the page) than the paper in my Rhodia bloc pads, but not to an unpleasant degree.

INK TESTS:

The paper handles most inks pretty well - there's some feathering from Waterman's Havana Brown, and Diamine Amazing Amethyst, which I'd expect, after tests of these inks on other papers. I detect a small amount of feathering from Quink Black, but only if I look at closeups.

I think the only inks with "unzoomed" noticeable feathering are Diamine Dark Brown, and J. Herbin's Pousserie de Lune - even that doesn't seem too bad compared to their behaviour on the Moleskine & Ryman books I tested previously.

Some closeups;

and the top set;

Note that the lowest green ink is "Diamine Emerald", not "Emerale". That's what you get for writing ink test pages too late in the day, I guess.

The paper feels pretty thin, and that's borne out by the showthrough scan above (how visible the ink is when covered by a single sheet of blank paper).

The reverse of the pages show up the thin paper too, with the inks clearly legible from the reverse side of the page. This is a more controlled, less blotchy reverse page than I saw on either the Ryman or Moleskine though, and I think overall, that's better.

IN SUMMARY

If you like spiral bound pads, this is a good bet at a relatively cheap price, if you can live with a somewhat over engineered coil in the binding, and the relatively thin paper. Do bear in mind that the paper in these pads has been known to vary in quality - the usual advice is to check the product code, and country of origin, and buy pads from the same batch, if you like your sample!

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