Getting to Know Hobonichi: Pens

This is the third and last post of a small series where I’ve been sharing my thoughts on Hobonichi and its Tomoe River paper. You can read the first post (on rubber stamping in Hobonichi) here, and the second post (on washi tapes) here.

I’m on my second Hobonichi Techo, which means I’ve been writing on its Tomoe River paper for quite some time now. It doesn’t mean I’ve been writing in my Hobonichi daily; there are days, even weeks, where the pages are blank. But I think I spent enough time with it so far to be able to finally talk about some of the pens I’ve tried, and highlight what worked and what didn’t work for me.

Note: In this post I use “TR” as an abbreviation for Hobonichi’s Tomoe River paper.

Testing various gel pens in the back pages of Hobonichi. This wasn't a scientific comparison by any means. It's simply to show what could happen if you don't wait for the inks to dry.

Gel Pens

One of the first things I learned from using TR paper is that I have to be very patient. Let the ink dry completely. Even when you think you’ve given it enough time to dry, it’s safer not to touch it. Because a little swipe with a fingertip (worse yet, a moist fingertip) can smudge the ink. Obviously, this depends on the ink formula, but surely I can put some of the blame on the TR paper’s characteristics. I mean, it’s so thin, yet the ink doesn’t bleed through! Where does the ink go if it’s not absorbed by the paper? Oh, it’s on the surface, taking forever to dry.

I’m sure seasoned Hobonichi users are saying “well, duh” by now, and it’s not like I haven’t heard that TR paper requires extra drying time. But some things are better learned through experience, I guess. I knew not to expect much from fountain pen inks, as most of them are dye-based and not waterproof. But I was disappointed to find that gel pens, too, require extra time and can be more sensitive to moisture, even the ones that never have these problems on regular paper. Some gel pens are better or worse than others. The Pentel Hybrid Technica, for example, smudges even after letting it dry for a long time. Thankfully, my favorite gel pen of all time, Pentel EnerGel Euro Needle-Point in 0.35 mm, is one of the better ones.

Another thing I learned is that I don’t enjoy the feel of gel pen tips when writing in my Hobonichi. I generally use finer tips (0.35–0.4mm), and these feel too pointy on the delicate TR paper. I tried using the plastic Hobonichi pencil board to add stiffness, but it made the writing surface feel too slick. This was really unfortunate for me, as gel pens are my primary choice in pens, and I really wanted to use them with Hobonichi. This is why, for awhile, I was unsure I would continue using Hobonichi in the new year.
 

Drawing Pens

But I didn’t give up! I experimented with drawing pens next, like the ever-popular Sakura Microns, Staedtler Pigment Liners, Pilot Drawing Pen, Uni Pin, etc. Since many of these are waterproof, I had no problems with them on TR. Once dried, I experienced no smudging. And along the way, I discovered a wonderful pen called Rotring Tikky Graphic Drawing Pen. I loved the feel of its tip on TR, its wet ink, and the dark red-brown barrel. I really enjoyed using it in Hobonichi… until the tip lost its crispness and became too wide for my taste. That seems to be the general problem I have with all the graphic liners I’ve ever tried (that, and also they’re uncomfortable to hold). So my search for a better Hobonichi pen continued...

Oh, one happy discovery I made is that Pilot Futayaku Double-Sided Brush Pen in black/gray ink is fantastic on the TR paper. The ink still requires a lot of caution and patience, but it doesn’t bleed through. Once it’s dried, it stays put. I especially like the gray tip; since the ink isn’t absorbed right away, you can push it around on the paper for a nice watercolor effect.

I’m still using drawing pens with Hobonichi; I just limit them to drawing, not writing. I make line drawings with a graphic liner (like Shaun the Sheep above!) and once they’re dry, I often shade them with the Pilot Futayaku gray ink.
 

Fountain Pens

I’ve heard plenty of people raving about how wonderful fountain pens are on Tomoe River paper, so that’s what I tried next for writing, despite knowing they’re not waterproof and that I’d have to be extra patient. I’m glad I didn’t give up because FPs are what I mainly use these days with Hobonichi. At first, I wasn’t exactly sure how to use my Hobonichi, but now that I’ve found a great fountain pen+nib+ink combo that works well on the TR paper, I’m journaling a lot more regularly.

My favorites are the Pilot Kakuno (F nib) with J. Herbin Cacao du Brésil ink. I’m not an FP expert, so I can’t say this is the best combo ever, but out of all the pens and inks I already own, it suits my needs the best. I really enjoy how the TR paper feels at the tip of my nib (without the pencil board), and I find Cacao du Brésil to be more resistant to smudging than other inks I have at home (e.g. Sailor Jentle Miruai).  These properties alone could have convinced me to not give up on Hobonichi, but I absolutely love the color, too! It’s a warm gray with a hint of purple.

Since my handwriting is small, I normally prefer Japanese EF nibs (especially on a small grid like in the Hobonichi) but the EF I tried (from Pilot Penmanship) felt too scratchy. To balance out the wider F nib, the soft gray color of Cacao du Brésil keeps my pages from looking too dark or contrast-y. I’m tempted to try more gray inks but the small bottle I got looks like it’ll last me a long time. Good, because I want to feel “settled in” with my Hobonichi already!

So yeah! Thanks for reading this far! Hobonichi has been a great excuse for me to experiment with different pens and finally see for myself how TR performs. It’s tested my patience at times but I had fun most of the time and I learned a lot. I’m still enjoying it and I’m sure I’ll discover new favorite fountain pen inks as I go.

What are some of your favorites pens to use with Hobonichi?

Related Links

• Hobonichi Techo at Amazon.com
• A Practice: My Hobonichi Techo | From the Pen Cup: I find Mary’s “three good things” per day idea inspiring, as is Ian’s Journaling with Purpose | Pens! Paper! Pencils!
• What I Use: Hobonichi Techo Journal | Fountain Pen Quest: take good note of Ray’s blotting paper idea!
• Hobonichi Planner Review at The Pen Addict by Susan M. Pigott
• Hobonichi Techo - The Newsprint
• How I use my Hobonichi Techo — fourfiftytwo
• 10 months in with the Hobonichi Techo - final thoughts — The Finer Point
• Gourmet Pens: Review: 2015 Hobonichi A6 Planner @TheJournalShop

PS: Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, which means, if you follow these links and make a purchase, I'll earn a tiny commission. Every little bit will help support the hosting of this site, and I’d very much appreciate it if you decide to follow these links.

Field Notes Colors: Snowblind

Snowblind is a winter edition of Field Notes Colors, released in November 2015. Before its release, subscribers to Colors were teased with a blinding photo of the sun, and it turned out to be a relevant hint (even though Field Notes always says the teaser image is NOT a hint). Snowblind’s key selling point is that it changes colors in direct sunlight, due to the special “photochromic” ink printed on its white cover. Color-wise, I wasn’t surprised that this edition was all white, similar to how Northerly (another winter edition, from 2011) also had the snow theme. But I didn’t expect a color-changing edition! I should’ve seen it coming, since Field Notes have mentioned in the past how they tried to work with special inks like glow-in-the-dark inks.

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Surprised or not, I very much looked forward to playing with Snowblind when it was first announced. Too bad my local weather wasn’t very sunny when I finally received my subscription, and I had to wait some time before I got a chance to expose my Snowblinds to direct sunlight. And boy was it fun! Watching the white covers turn blue was pretty exciting, and I even managed to make some patterns on them by masking.

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I used a clear, decorative gift bag with a snowflake pattern..

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Voilà!

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I used the kit from Dry Transfer to lay out “2016” on a sheet of clear film..

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Unfortunately, the novelty of Snowblind wore off pretty quickly for me. Maybe it was the gloomy and rainy “winter” weather here, or maybe it’s because I was spending more time with Snowblind using it, rather than playing with it. I use Field Notes indoors 99.99% of the time, which makes Snowblind simply a white-on-white notebook.

A white notebook that, I might add, starts looking dingy fast. This is in comparison with other white Field Notes, like Northerly or Day Game's “Hardball White”, which both hold up well. Of course, those two editions do show some wear and tear after a while, but Snowblind doesn’t seem to age as gracefully. Perhaps, without other colors and textures to distract me, the wear on Snowblind ends up looking more amplified. I’ve tried to “lift” some dirt off Snowblind with a kneaded eraser, which usually works on other matte covers, but that actually made things worse. I guess it has something to do with the special ink printed on the cover and the odd, slightly satin texture it creates.

I noticed that the blue ink used on the back cover doesn’t match the blue used on the inside cover. And did the belly band have to be yellow? I guess it did, to make the color-changing feature of Snowblind more obvious, in retail settings maybe, but the yellow in this edition doesn’t really do anything for me.

Okay, now I’m just nit-picking. That’s what happens when I feel “meh” about an edition (see my ranking of Field Notes to see how Snowblind fares). It's hard to pinpoint what makes Snowblind one of my least favorites, but I think it's the overall texture of it, how the cover is matte but lacks the fibrous feel (too smooth?). On top of that, it gets dirty quickly, when the beauty of its look (indoors) is dependent on it being pristine all over (even its staples are white).

But as a notebook, of course, it works just fine, and it fits my daily needs well. I like that Field Notes used a slightly thicker stock for the body pages again, and I enjoyed using the faint gray graph grid inside. Coupled with the light blue text on the white inside cover, Snowblind reminded me of a chilly winter landscape, even though my local weather didn’t match up. It also reminded me why I keep subscribing to Colors, and that is because I like seeing Field Notes books re-imagined in various ways, and I appreciate that they’re continuing to do trying different things every quarter. No doubt I’ll take a Snowblind out once in awhile and see its color change but as an every day memo book, it wouldn’t be my first choice. I have too many other Field Notes that I’m more drawn to. Blame it on all the special non-Colors editions lately for stealing the thunder, like the DDC Dead Prints?

Firsts

As mentioned above, the most significant “first” in Snowblind is the fact that it’s printed with a special “photochromic” ink that changes color when exposed to a specific range of ultraviolet light. The ink is actually screen-printed (which is another “first” in Colors), and since it reacts to UV light, it looks colorless indoors (or white in Snowblind’s case with the white cover stock), unless you use a special lamp (see here for more usage tips). Under a strong UV source, it turns blue in about 15 seconds. I definitely noticed that the direct sunlight produced a more saturated blue than when I tried to change the color with the sunlight filtered through the window. Either way, I was slightly disappointed that the blue reverts back to colorless very quickly, and it made photographing quite a challenge for me. Not that taking pictures of a white notebook is easy to begin with! :)

Apparently, this UV-sensitive pigment ink is very expensive, and Field Notes had to take “a bit of a hit in the ol’ profit-margin to get ’em into the world”. I wonder if that explains the smaller edition size of Snowblind, at just 25,000 3-packs (Shenandoah, the previous Colors edition, was 40,000 packs).

The other special ink on Snowblind is the “interference” ink, also custom-mixed and screen-printed by H&H Graphics – a printer I haven’t heard before through Field Notes (they also work with glow-in-the-dark inks! *nudge nudge*). This ink is used on the Field Notes logotype on the front cover. It’s a really pretty, pearlescent ink that almost disappears into the white cover at certain angles and sparkles with a hint of light blue at others. This is the part on Snowblind that doesn’t turn colors. I suppose FN could have left the logotype un-printed; that would have still produced the desired effect of the title standing out while the rest of the cover turns blue. But I’m glad they added some interest to an all-white cover with a hint of this sparkly ink. It goes well with the “snow blind” theme. I wonder how it would have looked if the whole cover was printed with this “interference” ink... :)

The last exciting “first” I’d like to mention is the appearance of glossy white staples in Colors. To avid Field Notes fans, Snowblind might not be the first, since the Starbucks Roastery “Coffee Origins” Edition and the Capsule A/W 2015 edition both featured white staples, but those were outside of the Colors series. For such a white edition like Snowblind, white staples is a no-brainer, and I’d love to see them again in Colors in the future.

By the way, Snowblind’s cover is made with Sappi McCoy 100#C Silk and it’s not a “first” in Colors. We’ve seen the same in Unexposed (Fall 2014). As for the body paper, Snowblind is not the first Colors edition to get the slightly thicker paper (Finch Paper Opaque Smooth in 60#T). Shenandoah is. I wondered if the 60#T would become a new standard.. Maybe it’s safe to assume that the next Colors edition would get the same body paper? We’ll just have to wait and see.

White staples of Snowblind, compared to the silver-colored staples of the Original kraft Field Notes.

Other notes

Another thing I wondered at the time of Shenandoah’s release: whether the mini kraft “HELLO” note in the shape of a Field Notes would be packaged with future Colors editions. And it looks like that will be the case, as Snowblind was packaged with the same promotional note. I’ve also seen it tucked in other FN products, like the 56-Week Planner, the Steno, 15-Month Work Station Calendar, etc.

And this didn’t really affect my ranking, but I noticed that most of the books in my 3-packs of Snowblind have frayed edges at the corners where the cover is folded. I’ve seen this happen in other Field Notes but it seems especially bad in Snowblind. Maybe the assembly machine needs a stern talking-to. Who knows?

Last note: I’m glad all the books in Snowblind are the same, which means I don’t have to buy as many 3-packs this time. The last Colors edition before Snowblind that had 3 identical books was Shelterwood (Spring 2014). That’s a gap of almost two years. Wow!

Quick color comparison (left to right): J.Crew, Northerly, National Crop “Cotton”, Day Game “Hardball White”, TEDx Portland, Capsule AW 2014, Capsule AW 2015, and Snowblind. For more detailed (but slightly outdated now) “white” comparison, go here.

Snowblind (right) vs. the other white winter edition, Northerly (left).

Some yellow belly bands with Packet of Sunshine thrown in (upper right): Snowblind (front), Coal x DDC (left), and Loot Crate “Classified” edition (upper left).

Quick graph grid comparison (from left): Northerly, Cold Horizon, Just Below Zero, Snowblind, and Original kraft.

Some fun (for me) details

• Snowblind is the 2015 Winter edition of COLORS, the 29th in the series.
• Item Number: FNC-29
• Edition size: 25,000 packs, November 2015. FN offered 1,000 new subscriptions starting with this edition.
• Covers: Sappi McCoy 100#C “Silk White” silk-screened with two custom inks: pearlescent “Interference Blue” ink and “Photochromic Blue” ink, by H&H Graphics in Vernon Hills, IL. Ink information of the blue text on the back cover is unknown, as is the lighter blue ink used on the inside cover.
• Body paper: Finch Paper Opaque Smooth 60#T in “Bright White”
• Graph grid inside: “Hoar Frost” light gray, soy-based Saphira ink
• Belly band: yellow with black text
• Subscription-only extras: none
• Extras: “Hello” note with No. FN-25 “Sincere Pronouncement,” packaged in between the memo books
• Staples color: white
• Film: Field Notes Winter 2015 on Vimeo
   

My Favorite “Practical Applications”

• #15. Yeti Sightings
• #20. Polar Bear Plunges Plunged
• #28. Moose Avoidance Plans
   

Fellow Field Notes fans’ takes on Snowblind

• Notes on Snowblind Field Notes | Pens and Junk
• Field Notes COLORS: Snowblind — M B S-P-B

What are your thoughts on Snowblind? :)