Book Review: How to Write and Draw in Fountain Pen

I recently got the chance to check out the new book How to Draw and Write in Fountain Pen by Ayano Usamura. She’s taken the vintage style of using a fountain pen and put a trendy modern spin on it. Inside the 95 page soft cover book you’ll find everything you need to know about using a fountain pen.

Learn about the different styles of pens and nibs, how to use a cartridge or fill a pen from an ink well and how to clean and how to care for your pens. There are tips on how to properly hold a fountain pen (with notes for lefties that I really appreciated), how to make your strokes and how to color in images. You’ll also learn what types of paperwork best and other handy tools to have.

You can start out practising drawing different types of lines, then move on to simple shapes and then easy illustrations. Ayano includes lots of step by step direction with little drawings that makes it easy to follow along. There’s a large section on drawing images and also different styles of fonts and letters. Once you’ve got the hang of it she’s got terrific ideas on how to combine it all together for layouts that include frames, phrases and illustrations with a section for DIY ideas from sticker labels, to planner pages, gift tags, a wedding board and more. To help you practice and get started there’s a cute handy tracing booklet inside as well as blank tear out practice paper.

I found the book really user friendly and was able to follow the steps to create some fun projects of my own. Considering I have pretty terrible handwriting and not a lot of natural talent for drawing I was really happy with how my projects turned out. Using a red ink cartridge in my fountain pen on Bristol cardstock (that was recommended in the book) I drew a wedding card with a frame of leaves and flowers around the couples name, adding some color with markers. Also drew a Harry Potter themed notebook cover following some of the designs directly from the book as well as creating my own.

I also made some fun planner stickers with blue ink using different illustrations and a font from the book that I drew then punched out from sticker paper.

I hope you’ve enjoyed taking a look at How to Write and Drawn in Fountain Pen, I really enjoyed trying something new that I can now add to my scrapbook pages and card making.

-Heather