Author: newtonpens

Engraving!

Engraving!  This is my first piece, practice, but it was so much fun!  Can’t wait to do more.

This is from a picture of a bonsai tree I found on the net.

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I used a couple of different types of burins from my wood engraving toolbox to do this.

The process is pretty straight forward – it’s very much like wood block carving, or engraving – both relief printmaking processes – which have been a major passion of mine for about 7 years.
see my old printmaking site – Coffee Grinder Press

Here is a picture of the burins I used. I draw a picture on a piece of paper, do a graphite transfer, then carve over the lines with the burins.

Always more work…

Sometimes when making your pens I goof up a bit.  And by a bit I mean that I have to start ALL THE WAY OVER.  😀  It makes for good practice, even if it’s sometimes quite frustrating.  Here are a few examples of my goofs recently.

First, a group shot.  The yellow one in the middle is probably the 5th or 6th pen I ever made a year and a half ago.  I’ve come a long way.  🙂  I use it now for inking and testing my #6 nibs.

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The black ebonite barrel in the back?  What could be wrong with that?  How bout this…

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While cutting the threads something went awry (I fixed it for the next barrel I made) and the thread cutting tool GOUGED into the barrel hard.  In hindsight I should have just trimmed the barrel back a bit and extended the threads farther up the barrel, but it was late and I was tired, so I cut the barrel off and started over.  🙂  It’s okay, the new one is better.

But what about the blue pen?  Check it out….

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Yeah, super goof.  I drilled the barrel out, threaded and shaped the barrel, and cut it away from the rest of the blank.  The problem?  I cut too close to the hole, and when shaping, I noticed how incredibly thin the end of the barrel was.  So I took a drill bit and shoved it through all the way, breaking the end away as you see in the picture above.  The end was so thin I could push it in with my thumb nail.  Now it serves as the tester pen for my #5 nibs.  🙂

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And a picture of the replacement barrel, after some shaping.    IMG_6056

2014 Scholarship Give Away #2

 

It’s that time again – and here’s the newest pen for the .  It’s made from a translucent gray acrylic with white stripes twisting around it.  I call it Gray Ghost.  🙂

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I’ll use a random number picker and will have it pick from the numbers available.  So if only 32 people buy tickets, the number picker will pick from 1-32.

So if all that sounds good then you can buy as many as you want payable through paypal to newtonpensscholarships@gmail.com.  Be sure not to send payment to my other email address.

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If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to ask.  [email protected] OR [email protected]

If you have any questions or concerns please let me know and I’ll get back with you asap.
This purchase is not tax deductible.

Thanks.
Shawn

And remember, every custom pen you buy will have a portion of the money sent directly into the scholarship fund to join the money made from raffling pens off each month.  This will help to grow the scholarship and help more students achieve their college goals.  Each scholarship recipient will get a pen and a couple bottles of ink of course.  :)
$20 from each sale will be sent to the scholarship fund.  That is instead of making twins of each pen.  I think this is a more worthwhile cause.  😉

And remember that the scholarship is available nationwide.  Here’s the application.  :)

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Pens with Kids.

I stopped in to Vanness this morning and was poking around behind the counter, looking at inks, and some kids came in with a lady who was exploring the cake side of the store.  The kids were exploring the pen case, the girl in green especially, commenting on how pretty the pens were as she went down the row.  I turned around from the Diamine selection, and she was drooling over one of the Visconti Van Gogh pens.  It was a light blue with bits of red swirled through.  I told her that pen was from Italy.

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Woooooowwww.  She said.

And that one is from Germany.  These are also from Italy.  These over here are from England.

Woww!  She said again.  I had no idea that pens came from all over the world!

Then she told the two kids with her that pens came from all over!  She was so excited!  It was a load of fun watching her reaction.  Then I pulled out a pen from my pocket and said THIS one is from Hot Springs.  I made it.

Whoooa.  Cool.  Can I see how you make them?  I handed her a business card and told her to have her parents show her my website.  I let her write with the pen a bit, which she seemed to enjoy.  I showed her the correct way to hold a pen and write with it, shiny side up, no pressure, pen laid back at about 45 degrees.  After writing and doodling for a minute, I laid out a color chart for all the Diamine inks and had her help me pick a color.  We settled on Kelly Green.

All in all – a fun morning.  🙂