Okay, the Brause Rose nib is slowly becoming another favorite nib.  It has not made its way to favorite yet, because sometimes it feels like I am trying to hold on to a slippery piece of pasta. It’s aesthetically beautiful, it has an embossed rose on its body which feels so very Victorian and lady like to me. This nib takes a lot of practice to get comfortable with for a newbie to the craft.  I have only been doing this for a few weeks so I don’t know how long it shall be before I can pull this out and scribe without fear of ruining what I am working on. When I am having a good practice session I can make the nib create beautiful thick stokes that mimic what I imagine I would want a paint brush to do (lettering with a brush is VERY difficult), this is a good ‘cheat’. You can also get very thin hairline strokes as you can see on the uppercase ‘L’ and the word ‘rose’.  My suggestion would be to try the Zebra G or Nikko G and get a feel for the dip pen and then work your way after a couple weeks to this nib.  It feels very ‘springy’ to me and is categorized as a flexible nib, meaning to get those hairlines you are going to have to have a feather light touch and to get those thick strokes will take nary any pressure. I don’t know for certain, but it seems like a calligrapher like Molly Jacques might use a nib like this to create the beautiful thick strokes of her lettering.

In doing these posts I wanted to be sure to add in some random lettering tips. One I should have made clear immediately before practice is wear clothes you won’t care about getting ink on. I ruined 3 shirts and my favorite pair of jeans before I started putting on an outfit specifically for lettering practice. It’s just a black t-shirt and black leggings (I look like a cat burglar), but I don’t have to stress about ruining another article of clothing.  I also always put down a piece of butcher paper; I love my desk and would be so sad if I ruined it. I have already spilled an entire container of black Sumi ink on my desk (and keyboard) and I never want to re-live that experience. Again if you have questions ask me in the comments, I am so new to this craft, but at least I can share my experience.

You can read about the Zebra G + Nikko G nibs here and the Gillott 404 nib here.

P.S. You will find when you start out that certain letters will vex you. I hate my ‘k’s and seriously can’t believe I posted one. I am also having the worse time with the letter ‘B’. My favorites letters are the uppercase ‘L’ and ‘G’ I want to find words that start with them just so I can write them all the time!