It is important to take care of calligraphy and illustrating equipment. Brushes can last a very long time if they are of a high quality and are cared for properly. If neglected, brushes quickly lose their shape.The most common cause of a brush no longer pointing is the build-up of paint particles in the base of the brush and ferrule. A build-up of pigment pushes the hairs apart and prevents the point from forming.

Cleaning BrushesAlways clean brushes immediately after use and before they have the chance to dry out.Wipe the excess paint off a brush with a lint-free rag.Then rinse the brush under running water. Brushes can be cleaned with cool water and mild soap. Gently swirl the soapy brush in the palm of your hand. Now rinse the brush. With a larger size brush you can very gently rub the brush with your finger and thumb to help rinse the bristles.Repeat washing and rinsing the brush until the soap and water run clear. Make sure that the base of the brush head is clean. Some pigments may stain the hairs slightly, but this will not affect the performance or the life of the brush.Finally, gently reshape the head and dry the handle and ferrule and stand head up to allow the hair to dry.

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	Firmly push the cartridge into frontend.
	Load a second cartridge into the barrel.
	Screw the barrel to the Frontend.
	The pen is now ready.
	Gently tap your pen on surface to start the flow.

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Once the nib has been prepared it is important to set it up correctly.  Some nibs are purchased with a reservoir, but reservoirs for the William Mitchell Square Cut nibs and Leonardt Square Cut Nibs are purchased separately and have to be fitted to the nib.  These reservoirs are usually made of brass making them flexible enough so they can be adjusted.  It is important to fit the reservoir correctly otherwise it can cause problems. If the reservoir is fitted too tight it can affect the tines of the nib causing scratchy pen strokes.   If it is fitted too loosely it will fall off (I’ve lost several down the sink or in the bottle of ink!).  The fit needs to be such that the reservoir stays on the nib but could quite easily fall off.The reservoir can be adjusted by using both thumbs to adjust the little wings that wrap round the nib.

It is usual that each time you fit a reservoir you will need to adjust it for the nib.  Now the reservoir fits the nib correctly you need to make sure the tip of the reservoir is just touching the nib.  Often it is necessary to bend the point of the reservoir a little.

Once the reservoir has been attached to the nib you will see a gap between the reservoir and nib.   The tip of the reservoir should be touching the nib.

Now the reservoir needs to be positioned correctly on the back of the nib. The position of the reservoir will control the ink flow.Start with the reservoir about 2mm away from the tip of the nib. If the ink does not flow very well, slide the reservoir a little closer to the edge of the nib. If the ink flow is too great, reduce the flow by sliding the reservoir away from the nib.

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There has already been a post on this blog about preparing nibs before you start to use them. Using a new nib frequently causes problems. Only the other day I spoke to a customer who was experiencing difficulties try to get the ink flow from a new nib. After a chat they followed the instructions on the preparing a nib post and later emailed back and said it worked.Another method of preparing a nib is to use a naked flame. With this method, the nib is passed back and forth through a naked flame. I have tried this method and the results seem to be the same as using boiling water, so I have always stuck with that. However, the following email extracts prove it can be worth trying different ways.Back in May, a customer contacted us with the ink flow problem. Attached to their email was some photographs that clearly showed the problem.“I am attaching these pictures to illustrate my problem with this nib.You sent me a Leonardt 33 nib. But, as you can see I can’t seem to write a single word.I have ink on the nib but no flow at all. What am I not doing wrong? Any suggestion would be helpful.”As the first photograph clearly shows, the ink was just sitting on the nib. You can see the tip of the nib is still dry. So we recommended the boiling water method. The following day we received an update.“Unfortunately , it is not working for me. The nib cannot write at all.. despite the soaking.”We then suggested the flame method. A couple of days later we receive another email and photograph. It had worked.What I had learnt from this was that it is worth trying different methods on the same nib. Just because once in the past the flame method had been tried and the result had not appeared to be any different to the boiling water method I had not used it since. However, if one method does not work, try another.

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The William Mitchell Round Hand Nibs are amongst the most popular edged nibs used by calligraphers. But the nib sizes are not so popular. Unlike the Brause Bandzug nibs and others, they do not have any measurements to indicate their size in millimetres. Instead they are assigned a number. Size ’0′ is the largest and size ’6′ the smallest. Even this is confusing as size 6 sounds like it should be larger than the size 0. It’s a shame the numbers on the William Mitchell (and Leonardt Round Hand nibs) do not relate to their actual width.Below is a chart giving the size of each nib in millimetres. These sizes are also the same for the Leonardt Round Hand Nibs

* Inch sizes have been rounded and shown as fractions of an Inch rather than a decimal value. This rounding has given the anomaly of some nibs being the same size.Accurately ruling-up some of the smaller nibs sizes can be very tricky. For example, 5 nib widths of a Number 6 nib is 2.5mm or 3/32”. This problem resulted in the development of the X-Height Measuring Discs

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Some papers ideally need treating before writing to give a sharper, crisper surface. Pounce gives a tooth to smooth paper helping produce crisper letters.Pounce is also used to remove the grease from the paper surface, preventing the ink from spreading. It can help prevent ink from spreading on unsized paper or over an erasure, as well as to prepare vellum to take writing ink.Pounce can be used for a paper that is too absorbent, on which the ink sinks into spreading and bleeding.Pounce is a finely ground powder prepared from gum Sandarac mixed with pumice or cuttlefish bone.To use, sprinkle a little Pounce over the surface and gently rub in with a soft cloth. Then, remove the excess with a soft brush. If there is a gritty feeling on the paper or the Pounce collects in the nib, you need to have another go at dusting the paper.

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Schmincke Finest Artists’ Calligraphy Gouache Colours are brilliant and mainly opaque, and their fine consistency perfectly suits the different forms of application in calligraphy.The following guide was taken from a Schmincke Finest Artists’ Calligraphy Gouache product sheet I recently discovered in an old box.You can create as many different colours as you need by using just six paints in the Schmincke Calligraphy Gouache Set.These six colours are each in a cold and warm variant:- yellow- red- blueFrom these you can mix the secondaries.Look at the paint blocks below. Each individual colour has a tiny amount of a second colour mixed with it. The first colour, lemon-yellow, is yellow-blue. Cadmium yellow light is yellow-red. To make good, strong secondaries mix together the two primary colours which are associated.Schmincke Finest Artists’ Calligraphy Gouache

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