I need a hero!

A Hero calagraphy pen. Photo: Cathy Johnson

After reading Cathy Johnson’s article from the Artist’s Journal about illustrating with a Hero Calligraphy pen I was literally hooked.
I have been looking for a fountain pen that would encourage me to draw in a loose style. My continual personal fight is to try and forget my graphic training from my years in advertising. I aspire to a free expressive line, not easy to find when you have reached or maybe even passed middle-age. By the way, does anyone know what the official mid-life years are? When do they start and when do they end?

So after reading Cathy’s article which was published on the Artist’s Journal Workshop website I immediately followed her advice and visited eBay and started hunting for some Hero pens. I found two which I ordered from China, one for 6 dollars and the other for 12, not so expensive and I hope to have a lot of fun with them. The seller of the Hero 86 Calligraphy pen had a very impressive page on eBay, he even had a number of pictures of himself going about his export business with the help of his moped, cute, I wish him the best of luck with his business. I have been buying a lot of art related things recently; I should probably stop ordering and start drawing instead – but shopping is so much easier than scratching that first uncertain line on a clean, white page!
If you would like to see the work of an excellent pen & ink sketcher who uses a Hero pen, visit Don Low’s blog, I discovered him on urbansketchers.com