How To Make a Quill Pen And Draw With It
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- čas přidán 16. 10. 2023
- In this video, I show to make a drawing instrument that was used by the old masters until the late nineteenth century: the quill. I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this remarkable tool, talk about its history and demonstrate how to draw with it.
Here are some links to online resources used to make this video.
Writing & Illuminating & Lettering by Edward Johnston:
archive.org/details/writingil...
A detailed chart illustrating how to cut a quill from Regia Anglorum:
regia.org/research/church/qui...
A very detailed tutorial on cutting quills:
www.flick.com/~liralen/quills/...
An Article on Dutching by Marc Calderwood:
markcalderwood.wordpress.com/...
I am so excited to have found this, I am a social studies teacher and students love medieval sections of curriculum. This is something I wanted to do with the kids, and this just popped up in my suggestions. You have shown me exactly how I can create an amazing and engaging lesson that the kids can achieve - I am so very grateful! Thank you!
My pleasure! This would be such a fun and instructive lesson for your kids. You must be a great teacher.
Great video! Thank you.
My pleasure!
excellent lesson
Thank you!
Thank you so much!
My pleasure!
You give some great advice 😊
Thank you!
Oh my, you are adding to my hobbies.
I have neighbors with geese.
Lucky you! And quill making is such a great hobby.
I use goose quills from time to time, but I did not know the tempering process with hot sand I will try it, in my country , you can find tooth picks made out of genuine goose feathers, soft for the tooth but easier to find, and providing a nearly readymade quill that you can even insert in a small penholder, just having to cut the slit. Thank you for all the knowledge you bring to us.
My pleasure. I used to cut the quills down and place them in pencil extenders. That made more then portable and eliminated the problem of people constantly asking me what I’m drawing with.
This is the first video guide to quill pen making I've seen which is recommendable to beginners, and a genuinely valuable resource. You even touched on dutching and Johnston's reservoir, which I certainly didn't expect. Many thanks; this one goes straight to the favourites folder. One observation - making reed pens is a good way to get in some preliminary practice, and raw materials are available for free pretty much everywhere.
Thank you for the kind words! I’ve never made a reed pen. Perhaps a topic for another video.
Another great video! I was very interested to know about the advantages of the quill, which I never suspected based on my attempts to make one.
Sadly, it's something that needs to be tried to really feel the advantages. Give a it shot!
Luckily I also have a Madrid Metro card, so I'm ready to give it a shot. ;) Thanks for another great video, very interesting.
Sigh, I wish I could use for its intended purpose, but it is very good for cutting quills. :)
Fascinating video. It explains why my childhood attempts at making quill pens didn't work well as I didn't know about tempering them. Once somebody else decides to make me some - I'll even pay them - I will happily join in. I've already got some walnut and oak gall inks. Sadly these days I have faced up to some limitations imposed on a naturally cack- handed person so my antique pen-knife will remain unused but my fingers will stay a little safer. Many thanks though.
Thanks! Correct tempering is really the key. Unfortunately, even if they sold them pre-cut, they need regular resharpening. :(
1. Fascinating. Thorough. You make it look totally possible and maybe even a useful endeavor. Particularly valuable is the info about tempering, unknown to us who have fooled around with feathers casually.
2. Only after the purchase of half a dozen flex nib fountain pens did I finally realise that my (current) idiom requires an absolutely even line, not a variable one. So no quills for me at least till it's time to move on to something new.
1. Thank you! There’s a lot of tutorials on how to make quills that either don’t include tempering info or don’t get it right. It is the most important step!
2. Quills can be cut stiff. Just make the shoulders and ink slit short.
@@mkompan it would be interesting to see similar drawings made with a quill and a fountain pen (and a dip pen?) , with the differences pointed out.
@@ichirofakename that would be interesting, though given the huge variety of quills, dip pens and fountain pens, it will be hard to arrive at general conclusions.
Holy crap its in a way a hand made fountain pen with the home made aluminum reservoir. Well done, sir.
Thank you! That little reservoir trick was a wonderful discovery and I’m happy to share it.
your dedication to your chosen medium is what makes it a fine art and that is commendable.
Thank you!
I love this and love making my own tools. That said my pentel brush pen does all these effects and more. Finer line to a line a 1/2in thick. Absolutely zero pressure to make a mark. So if you want a modern equivalent or just a way to practice a delicate touch so you can use a quill, try a brush pen.
I have quite a few brush pens, including the Pentel Pocket brush, and they’re great. It depends on what you’re doing with them, but for my purposes, the quill does many things that the brush cannot (and vice versa). For fast consistent hatching nothing can quite match the quill.
For those of you who have never used a tool that requires zero or low pressure to apply a mark then buy a brush pen to practice with. Your control will thank you.
Pentel pocket brushes, they are ex excellent for short poses in a life class, wash and line. However, for the sort of stuff Marc is doing, quills and traditional steel nibs may be the best. I wonder what is your drawing style and whether you ever tried the sort of drawings like in a video and how successful you were with a pentel brush.
@@dmitryivanoff2799My comment was on a technique to gain a lighter touch using one tool to replace a tool someone may not have. Nothing more. Way to read into things. "Marc blah blah blah" what does that have to do with anything? Your insinuation that brushes are only good for "short poses in a life class, wash and line" is hilarious and makes me wonder what your experience is. Do you have any? Many comic inkers from the 30's though 90's used brush only in their work and some still do. Same with cartoonists.
@@dmitryivanoff2799czcams.com/video/SyG1JBjSxYg/video.html Oh? Huh? Someone using brush only and not a wash in site. Waaaaataminute! That looks like an hours long session and not some "short pose"
Muito obrigado por compartilhar esse conhecimento valioso.
O prazer é meu!
Living at the coast, I have access to both swan and geese feathers. I gathered some a couple of years ago. I suppose they have aged long enough by now to forgo tempering complications, high time to try my hand at cutting some quils.
I have some experience making reed pens I also found this trick with the ink reservoir, and applied it with succes to a reed pen. Works great.
Glad this spurred you to give quills a try! I live near the coast too, but sadly we have nothing but seagulls.
@mkompan I'm in the northeast of Iceland, and our farm is at a fjord. I discovered that those birds, whooper swans and grey geese molt here. So I have the pick of a great assortment.
I use crow feather quills for calligraphy and as you say there is very little information out there, so thanks for this video which includes some things I have not yet tried. You said (5:58) that you would leave links to what you found online below but I did not see anything but your music credit. I would be interested to see if there was something I had not already seen out there.
Sorry for the omission! I juts posted four links that I found useful. The most valuable find was the complete text of Edward Johnston's book.
Thanks so much - great new resources for me
If I ever become so inclined to buy a Japanese inkstone, I'd like to see how that method would work comparatively to the historical ink that was finicky and clumped up without stirring. Sumi e ink from an inkstone is also an ancient historically used ink
I’m curious about it too. Traditional ink making methods are better preserved in eastern cultures.
So cool! The drawing looks great too!
Thank you!
Marc, I use vintage flex fountain and dip nibs. This was so informative and enjoyable. Thank you. ❤
My pleasure! If you like your flex, the quill is definitely for you.
Good one. Way back, before we could mount jpegs on a web page (we had to write our own html, too), my first searches were for brown or black inks and papers of the Renaissance, up to the 19th century. I was looking for clues about certain effects on paper that modern papers prevented. I found some good references, but what about getting bistre or genuine sepia without going to Europe for the right birch tree wood, burning it, collecting the soot, then brewing it from a number of recipes; or finding cuttlefish for their ink and processing that into the dark sable brown fluid for my feather quill? A new search provided the answer. Just 30 miles north in San Francisco I discovered a new store that specialized in arcane raw materials for traditional arts. I rushed up there and found pre-made shellac inks, both bistre and sepia. I also got the powders to make my own recipes using with other binders. Within 6 months, the shellac inks coagulated in their bottles. Before that happened, though, I found nothing especially excellent about the pre-prepared versions of these inks. In the end, I found I could get the color and line quality I needed with my quills from watercolor or gouache, mixing and charging the pens straight from my brush. The paper quest was another adventure. The feather quill is my preferred pen for wash drawing in the field. I find taking along valuable flex fountain pens is more trouble, and they don't often get as good results.
Thank you. Kremer Pigments sells a number of traditional pigments and inks, and I’ve tried their bister and the walnut ink, and both were underwhelming compared with their modern equivalents. Perhaps the masters had some secrets that made them work better. Textured traditional papers is really where the quill shines, and is its biggest advantage over metal nibs.
Absolutely fantastic. I have seen other materials are used for calligraphy like bamboo, drinking straw etc... Definitely worth trying for fun and experimenting.
Thank you! I’ll have to research other materials, but really the quill reigns supreme.
Thank you.
Enlightening.
My pleasure!
Loved this video,Marc!
Thank you!
Fascinating. A part of me wants to try this now. Although I know I will only get frustrated if I cut it wrong. Another part of me is lazy and says "just grap the pen sitting in front of you and start drawing."
It's worth trying, if only just once! And really it's all about the tempering. Cutting the pen isn't all that hard.
Little off topic.... but does anyone know what Tiepolo used for his grey wash?
The two most commonly used were carbon black, made from soot from the burning of oils, and bister, made of soot from the burning of wood, which has a range of brown colors depending on the wood used. Tiepolo used both types in his work. BTW, a video on traditional ink is coming soon.
Was wondering which St Armand blue is the paper ? Where did you get it Talas? I really like the shade. Thanks
I believe this is their light blue drawing paper. I bought it something like 2 decades ago from the long shuttered New York Central Art Supply.
Thank you, Marc, for your videos. I was finally able to buy some fountain pens that work for me and bypass trying more tools that frustrate me too much. I am using feather quills sometimes. Chicken feather do not work ( but i have not tempered any)! Turkey vulture feathers do :) I am looking forward to watching more videos from you. I wonder if you can de-mystify the different types of ink. Also, the portrait videos are great. I have not watched all of them yet but wonder how to get from drawing an anatomically correct head to a likeness. I know years of practice are key, but maybe there is a switch/trick also. Thank you!
My pleasure! I believe quills can only be made from the feathers of flying birds, which the the chicken sadly doesn’t qualify. I’m planning on doing a video on traditional inks. Perhaps I’ll expand that video to include modern inks as well. And though nothing is in the works in the immediate future, I will be making more head/portrait videos.
I have an Emu feather i brought from a school field trip to an Emu farm. its base is kinda thin compare to what you show, do you think it'll still work if i try it? Plus its quite hard itself, i couldnt dent it if i tried.
Sorry, I really couldn't tell you. Usually quills are made from the wing feathers of birds that fly.
no wonder the wild geese move away when they see my human bulk coming their way!
They must retain a collective memory of those terrible times. :)
I'm quite interested in literature about the subjecte. Where should I start?
I’ll post some links for you in the description section soon.
Thanks @@mkompan , appreciate it
the most devastating tragedy of the metal crow quill.... i have no clue where to get them in anything but those damn calligraphy sets where you get 1 at a time.
Goodness, you must live in a remote place, because they’re commonly available separately, both online and in art supply stores.
@@mkompan the land down under. i mean the tube/mapping ones, by the way.
sometimes modern things are better, but also sometimes they're only better because capitalism has strangled our growth as a society and it is not considered "profitable" to do things like, oh, bring back flax as a major crop, or create more humane+sustainable animal ag systems, or stop relying on plastic and fossil fuels for manufacturing.
Anyway I want to try quills :(
I'm not sure the quill was a sustainable practice either, given the huge number of flight feathers required to meet demand. As mentioned in the video by the early 1800's England had to import 20,000 pounds of feathers a year. Imagine what the demand might be today.
@@mkompan You have a point. I forgot how often geese grow/shed feathers. I've just been really on a "natural fibres are superior to polyester" kick lately and it's bleeding over into how I look at all modern alternatives to things, including art materials.