Glass dip pens are a great way to learn how NOT to have a death grip on your scribal tool, which means less hand cramping. Also, cleaning the tip is VERY easy, which will in turn make changing colors a breeze.. The glass is tempered to be like Pyrex so it can handle some pressure, but it doesn’t need it. I found them to be a little scratchy but much easier to deal with than a metal dip nib, despite the lack of italic. The ink flow changed as I rotated the pen. The first line is technically two dips, but the second dip was for the last word in the line because I under-dipped the pen to start. Line two is the other pen. Line three is back to the first pen.

Since glass nibs are mono tip, they do not offer the variable line thickness of flexible nib pens. Enter faux-lligraphy, which is the process of building up thicker lines to recreate the look of variable width strokes that can be done in one stroke with a flexible nib. This is fiddly as hell, not least of which because this is a hand with which I’m not familiar. First pass was just to get some letters down. Second was trying to color inside the lines except I goofed up the line spacing. Flow control is more difficult when filling in spaces, but that may still just be my newness. Videos I’ve been watching of people who are good at this do not show this issue.

Materials: Lined paper, dip ink, glass pens