Everything Under the Moon

I'm just curious to know what everyone writes with in their BOS. If you feel like sharing. Up until now I've always used a regular pen. But I've recently received a few bottles of Bat's Blood Ink and a few feather quills from a friend. I love the look of quill writing so i'm pretty exited to start using em.
What kind of ink do you guys use?


Blessed Be

I usually write with what's handy, especially when I come up with something new and I want to write it down before I forget. I do have both a pen and a pencil my former high priestess gave all the coveners that she had blessed specifically for writing in our Books of Shadows. I used to use the pencil quite a bit, but I haven't seen it in months. The pen doesn't really see the light of day because I'm just not a pen user unless it's the erasable kind.

My personal Book of Shadows is actually not that fancy, haha! I just use a Sharpie pen. But if you are going to be using a dip pen or a quill, I would be mindful about the properties of the ink and the paper you use. I don't know anything personally about Bat's Blood ink, but if you are planning on making your BoS a beautiful work of art to use throughout the years, any inks that you use should be archival quality and light-fast to prevent fading over the years and when exposed to light. Some kinds of inks, such as iron gall ink, will eat right through the paper due to high acidity, so you should also research your inks if you can. The colorful inks you buy in art stores are often dye-based, and while they are bright and beautiful when you first use them, I am told that the dye will fade rather quickly. If you are looking to illuminate your BoS or write in colors, the surest way to do it is mixing up some gouache paint (which I have not personally done).

Your paper should also be acid-free; otherwise, the paper itself will tend to yellow and age (and NOT in a good way!).

I am working on my coven's Book of Shadows, and I have had great results with Higgins Eternal ink, which should be available in most art stores. It is archival and light-fast, though NOT waterproof -- found that out the hard way. It is also reasonably inexpensive - $5 for a bottle, and I've been practicing calligraphy for several months and I've not even used a third of the bottle. I also typically use some multimedia/watercolor paper that I know is acid free. I have some sheets of Bristol Vellum (NOT made of real animal skins) that I am going to be trying soon! My materials aren't particularly "witchy", but they'll get the job done. I'll try to post some pictures of it soon.

If you are NOT too worried about your BoS lasting for years to come, then you can substitute any number of inks. Seraphin has some pictures of the beautiful results he's obtained with an ink made out of tea for a temporary sigil.

I use the Pilot Gel rollers in black. Though I use either the .05mm or the .07mm size. I dont use any other type of pen in my BOS. These pens allow me to write clearer and cleaner than any other pen. So I have these. I keep them on the altar when not in use,

I keep mine in my head. I used to keep my work schedule in my head too, until the day I almost forgot to go see a patient. Maybe I need to visit a stationery shop and get some pretty paper and ink.

Snow

Xiao Rong wrote: Your paper should also be acid-free; otherwise, the paper itself will tend to yellow and age (and NOT in a good way!).

I am working on my coven's Book of Shadows, and I have had great results with Higgins Eternal ink, which should be available in most art stores. It is archival and light-fast, though NOT waterproof -- found that out the hard way. It is also reasonably inexpensive - $5 for a bottle, and I've been practicing calligraphy for several months and I've not even used a third of the bottle.

Thanks for the recommendation. Honestly I hadn't though about how my book would hold up over a 20+ year period, and I certainly plan on passing it along. I guess my book will be getting an upgrade real soon. lol

loona wynd wrote: These pens allow me to write clearer and cleaner than any other pen.

Good point

SnowCat wrote:I keep mine in my head. I used to keep my work schedule in my head too, until the day I almost forgot to go see a patient. Maybe I need to visit a stationery shop and get some pretty paper and ink.

Snow

That's quite impressive. I doubt I could ever remember my entire BoS perfectly. For the same reason I don't put it online. I need to have it right in front of me.

Echo_of_shadows wrote:I usually write with what's handy, especially when I come up with something new and I want to write it down before I forget.

Same here. Ideas tend to pop out of nowhere which leaves little time for it to look fancy.
After all this time, my book's had some wear and tear. I'm definitely going to have to upgrade. Thanks for the ideas and sharing your personal methods.

Blessed Be

Xiao Rong wrote: Your paper should also be acid-free; otherwise, the paper itself will tend to yellow and age (and NOT in a good way!).

Hmmm. I wonder if they make acid free white lined paper. I use your typical three ring binder notebook paper for my BOS. I like the use of the lines because it allows me to write smoothly and evenly spaced across the pages. The fact that my writing is neat with the lines is important to me. I want my book to be readable by people other than myself (meaning any students I may take on as well as family member and friends).

Hmmm. I wonder if they make acid free white lined paper. I use your typical three ring binder notebook paper for my BOS. I like the use of the lines because it allows me to write smoothly and evenly spaced across the pages. The fact that my writing is neat with the lines is important to me. I want my book to be readable by people other than myself (meaning any students I may take on as well as family member and friends).

I'm not sure if acid free white lined paper is particularly common ... but I know what you mean about wanting lines so that it's neat and readable! Otherwise my writing will start drifting all over the page ... So as a (hobbyist) calligrapher, I can tell you that people often manually line their paper with a T-square, an Ames lettering guide, and a pencil. It's a huge hassle, though, to manually line the paper, then erase all the pencil markings. To save myself time, I invested in a lightbox (this is the model I have), so you can place a template behind the sheet of paper you're writing on, so that way the backlighting lets you see the lines on the template without having to actually manually line it yourself. It's a bit pricey, but it's a timesaver and the easiest way (in my opinion) to get the benefits of both lined paper and acid free paper.

I first write in mechanical pencil, then "ink" it with just a black pen. Nothing special or fancy. My handwriting is legible but not particularly pretty or special. :/

I write in whatever color pen I have ..its not fancy at all just a three ringed binder. I also use my tablet as a sort of BOS finding all of my information online. I decorated the cover and its pretty cool. But yeah just regular ink and lined paper..its a lot of information.

I'm a little old fashioned. I use pen and ink. It can be messy and at times I get ink smudges everywhere but I just turn the smudges into to some doodle.
I have several colour inks which I match up to what I'm writing about. I just want my B.O.S to be special and as I write with biro and pencil all the time it makes it more special to have something I use just for my B.O.S

I hand write in my dream journal but I use printer ink for my BOS. I scrape book so I tend to print what I need to and then add pics or dried herb/flowers.

I use a fountain pen with iroshizuku ink:

TwilightDancer wrote:I'm just curious to know what everyone writes with in their BOS. If you feel like sharing. Up until now I've always used a regular pen. But I've recently received a few bottles of Bat's Blood Ink and a few feather quills from a friend. I love the look of quill writing so i'm pretty exited to start using it.
What kind of ink do you guys use?


Blessed Be

Printer ink x3

Seriously, though, my aunt did a lot of our BoS, and it's largely computer formatted. I have a digital version on my flashdrive, which is very handy at times. When I'm not printing it from the digital version, I write in pencil because I hate writing in pen -.- I'm guaranteed to make a dumb mistake and be unable to fix it.