Saturday, May 21, 2011

Looking At The History Of Pens In Review

By Dave Shuttle


In the beginning, there was a finger dipped in vegetable juices, smearing the stuff on cave walls. These might be found in odd places throughout the world, depicting the daily lives of those doing the art work. Eventually they came up with other ideas for creating these word pictures, such as using small animal bones and eventually metal tools. Far in the future, brush pens made of rat or camel hair found their way to the hands of writers and artists.

Other methods later on included using quills from the goose. These were hollow and needed to be dipped and re-dipped into the ink medium in order to complete a project. This also necessitated the frequent trimming of these quills, since they did not hold up well. Monks of years gone by used this method until a better way was found. In China, reeds of bamboo were used quite successfully as well.

Just think what could have been accomplished by the writers of long ago if they had the use of the tools now modernly used. Even the pen holding ink in its own barrel was not created until the late nineteenth century. Their works were finished under much more dire writing conditions than found today.

Styles of pens and their tips may be gel or felt and might be used in our everyday crafts. They are much needed tools in our everyday life. Even with the computer and various other technologies around for our use, we still need the pen and pencil and the paper to write on. There are many different styles of leaving marks on paper with one of the most beautiful being calligraphy and there are many more.

Those who want to have their writing looking wonderful will use some of the most unique pens around. They are the fountain pen and they will most likely be around forever because of the beautiful results they produce. There is also the ballpoint which could be used more than any other pen. When it came onto the market, people went wild because there was finally a pen that didn't run out of ink, at least for a very long time.

Colors of ink can be found in a great variety, in every shade imaginable. Those unfortunate enough to have hand or finger issues may be benefited by using a too-skinny pen with padded little tubes squished onto them. Most folks only use their writing skills for simple lists or letter writing to friends and family with no computer. Of course, in the office setting pens are found in abundance, usually in blue, black or red.

The highlighter type of pen can be used in studying, if you own the book or manuscript you are studying. These have been a miracle. Reading once, marking important passages and only having to skim back through those pages to catch these yellow lines makes faster studying.

Scrapbook enthusiasts often make use of colorful pens to add definition or interest to their pages of photographs stuck to the pages of their scrapbook. These pens need to have special no-acid types of ink that will not harm the pictures and will last. This writing instrument of today has been commemorated in a far east country by a tall building made in the shape of a pen.




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