One continuous line, and fountain pens

                                                    

 

I received this picture in the email today. You can click here to get the larger image. You might want to see it enlarged after you read what I'm writing about.

When I first saw the image, the e-mail repeated the words that are printed at the bottom of the image: "All done with a single stroke of the pen."

Wow!... it's done in one continuous line. That means the pen is never removed from the paper from beginning to end. The artist drew without stopping, without dipping for more ink. Without blotting, without error. The line begins at the tip of the nose and ends at the final, dangling, curly line. One long, unbroken line from beginning to end. I was impressed. But I didn't believe it.

Yeah... I doubted it. My first thoughts. The date on the image reads 1884... there is no way this picture could have been drawn with the single stroke of a pen unless it was fountain pen or other continuous ink flow system. Quill pens had to be dipped repeatedly to complete such a lengthy line. A feather quill pen could not have drawn this picture. Weren't quill pens, or other dip and writing implements, pretty much the only pens being used at the time? I didn't know for sure.

I searched and found many pictures of drawings done in one continuous line, even paintings painted with continuous line, color changing, but the line unbroken. But how could this drawing be done like that in the days when people were mostly writing with quill pens and/or fountain pens that worked poorly?

I thought it was one of those false reports, a hoax of sorts, that is sent to us by friends and family who think we'd just love to see this photo or read that story. This one caught my interest as a teacher and a lover of writing... of one who loves to write with a pen. Especially fountain pens.

I'd been researching the history of pens for one of my classes this week, as a matter of fact. I had cut the quills of four large feathers into what I fancied were writing utensils... quill pens.

I had found two videos on the internet that showed me how to do it... a lot harder to do than I thought.

I had found articles with pictures on how to cut and shape the nib of the pen into something that would write. I had read articles about the history of writing utensils... had not paid attention to the dates.

I returned to one of the articles I had read on the history of the pen, and lo, I discovered that the year 1884 when the first practical fountain pen was invented by Lewis Waterman.

This drawing could very well have been drawn in 1884 by one of those new-fangled fountain pens that Mr. Lewis Waterman, an insurance broker in New York City, invented himself.... after a rather embarassing and financially stressful event. His story follows... or what I could glean from two different sources:

You see, about a year before his life-changing invention, he was about to sign a very important contract. There were some type of pens with larger ink reservoirs on the market, but mostly they leaked and dripped terribly. He wanted something more reliable to mark the signing of this special contract, so he purchased one of the higher priced reservoir pens. He may have thought that if it cost more, it would work better. I don't know which brand he bought. The Schefer and Parker pens were already patented by this time, mabye it was one of them... but there were no facts (I could find) about which brand he had purchased.

At the signing of this important contract, the new pen leaked all over the document. One story I read said that Mr. Waterman left the office to get another contract, and while he was away, another insurance broker stepped in and signed the contract... Another version of the story goes that the client took the blotted signing as a bad sign, and refused to seal the deal.

Waterman was humiliated and frustrated by this misfortune, so he resorted to his own ideas about how a pen could work with a continuous ink supply without leaking and blotting messily over important documents. He whittled and shaped a wooden model until he came up with a pen that worked better than the rest. By 1884, his fountain pen design had been patented, manufactured, and sold successfully. He guaranteed it for five years. His pen became known as the first practical fountain pen invented.

Was the Waterman pen the one used in this drawing? I don't know. I've been searching to find the answer to that question. If you happen to be interested in taking up the quest along with me, I'd be glad for some company. Who drew that picture, and what kind of pen did they use?

It is late. I stayed home today. This is what I saw when I looked out onto our back deck this morning:

                                     

But that is not why I stayed home... although we did get an optional teacher workday today, which will have to be made up next week. No, this little bit of icy sleet and rain would not have kept me home... I could have gone in later in the day. I love workdays. 

I stayed home because I've been fighting a bug of some kind since Saturday, and was slap wore out by yesterday noon. Last night I was running a slight fever. I decided what I needed was to take some medicine, stay home and sleep without disruption. I did, until 11:00 a.m. then rested the remainder of the day. Just what my doctor (and my son the pharmacist) ordered... and lots of water, some Tylenol, some Robitussin, and more sleep.

I think I'll be ready to go back to school tomorrow.

But I'm still curious about that continuous line drawing and those early fountain pens.

Tags: fountain pens, quill pens, continuous lines, winter weather, blogplug