📙 #045 - Pointless numeric targets, weeknotes, papercamp 3 & grumpy AI
But first some ink
# PERMANENT FOUNTAIN PEN INKS
Look, I was going to try and format this into some kind of useful list or get some more of these inks to test them. Perhaps I still will (although I think I’m just going to go in on De-Atramentis inks), but I saw this Reddit post a while back.
“Aside from DeAtramentis, the Platinum and Sailor Pigment inks and Noodlers (which I want to avoid), who else makes decent pigment or more permanent fountain pen inks?”
Reddit link
I figured I’d let the discussion run its course and then see if I could discover some new inks.
Of course, I’m mainly thinking about what lightfast inks I can use in fountain (and technical) pens for pen plotting.
The winners seem to be Rohrer & Klingner document/permanent inks; here are three:
Octopus Fluids, Write & Draw Inks, which are “particularly lightfast” and “Our Write & Draw Inks are the first pigmented inks that can be prescribed very well with fountain pens”, and yet “Clean the fountain pen immediately after use”.
But otherwise, this is the dream, right?
Although once again “Unlike most other waterproof inks, Octopus Write & Draw can be used in a fountain pen without hesitation. However, care should be taken not to let the fountain pen dry out. We therefore recommend that you rinse and clean your writing instrument carefully after use to prevent the ink from drying up accidentally.”
I want for both ink to be lightfast and me to be allowed to be lazy.
Oh, there’s a review here, too: https://nickstewart.ink/2022/10/19/octopus-fluids-write-draw-pigment-inks-review/
Nick also has a Kakimori pigment ink review: https://nickstewart.ink/2022/11/07/kakimori-pigment-inks-review/
I have a few of these inks (https://kakimori.com/en/collections/ink) sitting on the shelf waiting to be tested, so I should probably get around to that. However, they appear to have added some new “Inkstand”; brighter colours than the original release.
This part is very new to me: https://kakimori.com/en/products/is-p-self-guided, where they can mix you up a bottle of colour based on an image or a Pantone id. So, if having a personalised ink colour to go with your pen plot sounds fun, go for it, and let me know how it goes.
I may see if I can get a “Catt Orange” blend!
[Last minute update: I’ve tried both the red and blue inks (from the photo at the top of this newsletter) in a 0.7mm technical pen, and they worked fine. I even left the ink in the pen overnight and it’s still working today. The blue is beautiful, the red is paler than I’d hoped]
# THE MARCH TOWARDS 1,000
Friends and I will send each other little screenshots of various view counts, like numbers, targets, and so on.
The screenshot will come with a note, “I know this isn’t important but...” and the number will be a nice round number, the highest it’s been for a while, 666, or sometimes back up to where it was five years ago. We’ve been around long enough to know how to play the game, the “correct” thing to do to make those numbers go up, and we’re so tired of that shit, and just carry on doing our own thing.
BUT.
It’s a hard habit to kick. I think we share those numbers even though we’re trying to ignore them, as there’s still some joy in hitting milestones despite not playing the game. It proves that our work can still move metrics, albeit much slower than if we did it “correctly”.
It’s a bit like the line “I did it my way,” if the line was “I did it my way, even though some of my friends did it the algorithm-correct way and tbh, they’ve done a lot better in a shorter space of time. OMG, what am I doing with my life?”
That may well have been the original line, but I’m no songwriter, so for the sake of scanning (or whatever happens in a song), it got cut down.
Anyway, friends, we’re doing alright!
# I SAW THIS DRESS AT THE SUPERMARKET
# PAPERCAMP 3
I headed down to London with Kitty (my AI PA) tucked into my laptop, Kitty’s pen plotter wrapped in a bin bag, and copious amounts of tape until it looked like I was trying to smuggle a crossbow.
Somehow, it survived the trip down and back, a testament to its ruggedness. However, I was left with a renewed interest in getting an A4 or even an A5 plotter rather than lugging an A3 one around, as Kitty never uses anything larger than an A4 anyway, and hardly ever that.
Anyway, it was fun to talk about paper and show off Kitty’s handwriting skills a little.
In ‘ye olden days’, I’d be able to link to a few blogpost write-ups about it and several Flickr streams of photos. Instead, it’s now weeknotes (and walknotes) all the way down...
“Dan Catt’s Robot handwriting & AI assisted journaling—this was a wonderfully thoughtful take on bringing AI into art practice. And I really now want a drawing machine to make index cards of my to-do lists”
- from Vicky Teinaki, in her weeknote.
And this from Denise, in her delightful Walknotes
“Yesterday I went to Papercamp, organised by Alex Deschamps-Sonsino. It was such a nice event – and Dan Catt’s talk “Robot handwriting & AI assisted journaling” was a real highlight. It could’ve been a dense talk about code, instead it was a brilliantly told human story about AI. I think it was recorded. If it was, I’ll share the link.” -
I, too, think it was recorded. If it was, I’ll share the link. If not, I’ll reenact a version for YouTube and put my notes up somewhere.
# KITTY KORNER
Speaking of Kitty, this is from her suggestions for the day.
You know it’s going to be one of those days when even your AI is calling you out.
A bit more context, the past few days have seen me battling some bugs in my pen plotter line-joining/cutting, draw order optimising code; although me, waffle, I don’t know about that.
# WEEKNOTES
Speaking of weeknotes from above-above, I followed up on my “What are weeknotes?” video with a “Why I make weeknotes?” video. Although my version of weeknotes are video rather than written.
WHAT:
WHY:
This is NOT going to be part of a trilogy because Who (me), where (wherever I am), and when (each Friday) are already a given.
Perhaps there’s a How in the future, although that sounds too nerdy even for me.
# THE END
I’ve done a lot of pen plotting over the last few weeks, not that you could tell from my social media posts. This is mainly because they’re for my current gig, and while I will be talking about them, it’s not quite yet.
I have slightly complicated feelings about one very mild aspect of this, which I’ll obviously discuss with work. When I’ve figured it out, I’ll probably write about it here.
It’s nothing major, like, at all, but it does feel like a learning moment 😁 and you know I love to share those.
Old Studio Sale Update:
The next newsletter should be out on Thursday, October 17th.
LOVE YOU ALL
Dan
❤️