Quote of the week and a few words on Brause Arrow and Rose nibs

I stumbled upon Elif Shafak’s name on Good Reads, who turns out to be one of the most prolific contemporary Turkish female authors.  Saw my picture of her books on Instagram, Zeynep of Write to Me Often suggested The Forty Rules of Love by the same author, a historical novel on Rumi.  I finished Forty Rules around the same time as Shafak’s other novel titled The Bastard of Istanbul, due to the fact that Forty Rules was on a short loan from a public library.  Though the plots of both novels are arresting (The Bastard deals with Armenian genocide and Turkish national history), personally I found the plot of Forty Rules a bit more coherent and flows more smoothly.  There are multiple narrators to the novel, which adds the complexity to the plot because the readers gain several perspectives of the same story.  This storytelling style also reminded me of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red.

The nib I used to copy the quotation from above is Brause Arrow.  It surprises me with its petit size, even smaller than regular dip nibs as shown in the picture below:

Size comparison:  Arrow measures 1 1/16 inch (2.70 cm) long and 1/8 inch (.32 cm) wide.  Brause Rose measures 1.5 inch (3.81cm) long and .25 inch (.64 cm) wide.

Despite its miniature size, Arrow fits in standard nib holders (the holder I use is a Koh-I-Noor No.127). Arrow feels more rigid when writing, but that rigidity also gives writers more control of the nib.  The flexibility of Arrow is not limited by its size.  Rose nib is unbelievably soft that makes flexing almost effortless.  Sometime when I have too much ink loaded on the Rose nib, ink literally just gushes out because of how sensitive Rose nib is to pressure.  It is helpful to put the hand under the writing hand to guide and only apply minimal amount of pressure to the Rose nib.

As usual, before I use either nibs, I rinse the nibs under running water and brush it with a soft bristle, in case there is any oil residue left from manufacturing.  The ink will coat the nibs better after the wash.  All the written samples are done with Holbein Acryla Gouache in navy blue.

Have you tried any dip nib recently?