In case you haven’t noticed the new promo button on the left column of this blog — or didn’t see our Tweet last week — we just started a Flickr group so that people can share artwork they’ve created with Quo Vadis, Clairefontaine, Exacompta, and G.Lalo stationery and/or J. Herbin inks. (Rhodia Drive has its own Flickr group, though you can share Rhodia stuff with us, too!)

It’s called Exaclair and Art, and it’s already got plenty of inspiring stuff to look at: some gorgeous drawings, patterns, and calligraphy by Gentian, and a series of Incan frieze-inspired sketches by betolung.

Enjoy, or join us if you’d like!

Guest blogger Kate Marshall recently wrote about her evolving taste in journals on her own blog, K’s Notebook. (Spoiler alert: she’s fallen hard for the new Rhodia Webnotebooks.) Here, Kate answers some questions about her journaling habits. Take it away, Kate!

On your blog, you mention that you’ve kept a journal since 1993. What motivated you to start?
Wow. It’s a simple question with no concrete answer. I’ve always loved to read and write, since I first learned how when I was five years old. I remember the first entry though: it was January 1993 so I was about nine years old. I was at the Genuardi’s with one of my parents, and happened upon a display of teddy bears. Another girl, about my age, was looking at them also. We said “hi” and then went our separate ways. But afterwards I kept thinking, “I’m pretty sure that was so-and-so who used to be in my class last year!”

When I got home, I dug an extra copybook out of the “supply cabinet” (one of the living room end-tables) and started writing. That was it. My first journal entry in my first journal: a slightly-used Mead composition book, written with a beat-up rollerball that I pretended was a dip pen (…I should’ve clarified that I was a strange child). Around this time, my friends and I were all very much into the Babysitters’ Club line of books and one of the main characters was an avid journal-keeper. I suppose the Babysitters’ Club may have influenced my nine-year old brain somewhat. For a while, I even hid my journal under my mattress, like in the books. Looking back now, I’m fairly certain my mother was onto me.

How often do you write in your journal? Has that changed over the years, or have your habits always been consistent (or consistently inconsistent)?
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I am a leftie.  I am in good company.  Over the years, I have found a lot of people at pen shows, the Fountain Pen Network, writing on the train, plane or in a coffee shop, and yes, the people who read and participate in this blog, are left-handed like me.  (FYI- Leah is right-handed, but we all love her anyway!)

Here is a list of notable lefties.  Both President Obama and Senator John McCain are left-handed.  Paleolithic cave paintings from France and Spain indicated our leftie ancestors were active in the arts over 30,000 years ago.  Studying a collection of so-called negative hand drawings on cave walls – similar to tracing one hand with the other – scientists found that some individuals drew their right hand.

A problem common to all lefties is smearing of ink on the page and our hand. For years, whenever I would write  in a pad, notebook or journal–including Rhodia, Exacompta AND Clairefontaine–I would smear.  I had taken to writing awkwardly by lifting my hand up a little but even that wasn’t foolproof.

Finally, in desperation, I asked Sam Fiorella of Pendemonium what I should do.  She said:  “Get a pen with a fine nib.” I did, and the problem was 95% resolved.  But if I wrote too quickly, sometimes the ink would still smear.

I mentioned this to Chuck Swisher of Swisher Pens while I was at the DC pen show a few years ago.  He told me he had developed a smear-proof ink, using Rhodia pads for his product testing! The ink can be seen on his website here.

I tested the ink at his table, and I have to say it worked exactly as Chuck said it would: it doesn’t smear–even if you take your thumb and draw it across the letters.  I have personally recommended it to other lefties as an ink for us.

I have and use Noodler’s, J. Herbin, Sailor, Swisher and Diamine.  I love them all, and smear with them all. Except Swisher.

What ink(s) or pen(s) would you recommend for lefties?