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Two main feelings surfaced. One was curiosity, of course. Everything was new! Everywhere was worth exploring! The architecture, the way the city felt and looked, the sounds, the smells, strange writing and signs everywhere, even the trees and plants, were new to me. The shortest walk to a neighboring supermarket felt like a neat adventure.…
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I just adore art and writing supplies. I love their touch, all the distinctive smells (the way the Japanese manga ink or freshly sharpened cedar-wood pencils smell!), and the beautiful colors of inks and pigments suggesting unlimited creative possibilities bound within them.I love researching, getting new tools, and arranging them into small sets that fit…
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…and my current writing setup Just recently, our small son began his kindergarten experience, getting used to it at first, just for two or three hours each morning. This schedule allowed me to go every weekday morning to a cafe nearby and try to focus on writing. Accidentally, this forced schedule also came at a…
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I already wrote a bit about how great ballpoint pens, and especially the ISO-standardized refills, are for drawing. Since then, I have been doing a lot of ballpoint sketching and started to look for other exciting pens to use. I enjoy my LAMY fountain pens a lot (especially the metal AL-Star and Lx series) but…
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Hey everyone! I just got back these minutes from a short Q&A “talk” I did some time ago for a Polish Japanese language school, Kotonoha, on topics of Japan, languages, communications, creativity, etc.
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I have not been doing any serious art supplies shopping for some time now. Most of the tools I use on the day to day basis last me a long time – I use fountain pens for writing and drawing and lead holders for sketching. I can paint many watercolor illustrations for a whole book…
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Finally, the time came to test and review one of the devices that made me interested in dedicated writing solutions in the first place – the Freewrite Traveler! A few years ago, the original device made by Astrohaus – the Hemmingwrite (later renamed to Freewrite, Smart Typewriter) piqued my interest. It launched as a Kickstarter…
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This is all very nice, but what if someone would like to try making art with all these fancy ballpoint pen refills without buying an expensive Italian-made pen or spending hours in an office supplies store trying to look for the least-rattly one? There is one more interesting hack-like solution to this – using a…
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In one of the first articles of this series – exploring various weird and retro writing devices – I mentioned the Pomera DM30 as may go to distraction-free mobile word processor. Even though this device is not exactly retro – it was made as recently as 2018 – it is unique and worth further delving…
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A few years ago, when we still lived in the center of Tokyo, I made a few cool art supplies stores the goals of my walks. Once or twice a week, I would stroll to Ginza or Nihonbashi and visit stores there or along the Sumida river to the Kakimori. I would just browse, test…
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Mateusz Urbanowicz 