A Maze - Page 22

Keeping to the strict schedule I have made for myself, today I have the next page of the first maze ready. It is just beginning to dawn on me that I won't have my fourth maze done before the end of the month. I'm on page 74 now, with 16 more to go. I suppose if I didn't go to work and cut down on my beauty sleep, I might be able to put it off, but even then probably not. And does anyone care except me? I truly doubt it. I think most people would agree that I need all the beauty sleep I can get instead.

Anyway, for today I give you the scanned and edited version of page 22.

Page 22

Here is the same page out in the wild. I know that Mark will know where this is. We had many adventures at this place though it didn't look so classy back then. I caught the maze in a few pictures around this place, so I'll give more information later.

That is about it. I'm still working hard on my maze, so there will not be an update on the Line tomorrow. I might be able to roll out another segment because the weather is good. I will show it off on Tuesday if I do.

Jonathan

Goulet Pen's September Ink Drop - The Maze

For the September Ink Drop from the Goulet Pen Company I decided to draw a five page maze. I drew five pages because I liked the colors so much. The following scans make up this maze.

Start on the page labeled '1' (in the bottom left hand corner) at the circle labeled 'Start'. Follow the pathways until you arrive at one of the circles labeled '2B', '3A', or '3B'. Then go to the page with the number of your circle. Look for the circle on the new page with the same number and letter as your circle. ex. If you arrived at the circle labeled '3A', go to page 3 and continue from the circle labeled '3A'. From this new circle, follow the pathways until you get to another circle, and so on. The goal is to get to the circle on page 5 which is labeled 'End'.

That's all there is to it. Simple. Well, okay, it is a little bit more difficult than the August Ink Drop maze.

So here are the pages.

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page4

Page 5

If you succeeded in solving this maze, you might want a bigger challenge. Maybe the 90 page maze and contest posted here will fit the bill. There is still time to enter.

That it for this month.

Jonathan

Goulet Pen's September 2011 Ink Drop - Part 6

For the fifth and final page of my September Ink Drop I paired Private Reserve Sherwood Green and Waterman Florida Blue. This was another great combination. The colors look very good together, so the maze looks pretty cool. Here is what it looks like:

As I said in the previous post, the Sherwood Green surprised me because it turned out to behave very well. In the past I had used it in a cheap notebook and it performed worst than any ink I have ever used. On the Clairefontaine paper that I draw the ink drop mazes on it worked great. So make sure you use a good fountain pen friendly paper for this ink. I really like the bright green color.

The Waterman Florida Blue is a new ink to me. I used it in my Ducati Limited and I found that the line it produced was inconsistent. The line varies from a fairly pale blue to a good medium blue. I always use a Fine nib and so I don't really see a lot of shading with most inks. With the Florida Blue I think a broader nib would show quite a bit of shading. The ink dries quickly though. I had no smearing or smudging. There are so many blue inks on the market that there are herds of medium blues that are as good or better, in my opinion.

Here is what the maze looks like laid out in one place.

I will be posting the scanned pages in a couple of days so that you can take a crack at solving it. I'm quite pleased that after I put the node labels in at random, it turned out to produce an interesting maze right off. I didn't need to make any edits.

That's it for today.

Jonathan

Goulet Pen's September 2011 Ink Drop - Part 5

For the fourth page of the September Ink Drop maze I paired Noodler's North African Violet with Private Reserve Sherwood Green. This was a great combination. I really like the way the two colors go together. I talked about the North African Violet in my last post. In short, it is a very good ink and color which dries quickly.

In the past I had a bad experience with Private Reserve Sherwood Green and I wasn't looking forward to using it. My previous experience with it was with cheap notebook paper. The paper just soaked up the ink like a sponge and the line was uncontrollable. I did an page of my third maze with it and it turned out terrible. On the Clairefontaine paper Sherwood Green was a totally different ink. True, it still took a longer time to dry than any of the other inks, but the line was crisp. The color is a good bright green, like the Oakland A's green. My opinion of this ink has changed 180 degrees. The paper makes the difference.

Here is a picture of the fourth page of the maze with the two Lamy Safari pens I used. There is a subtle difference to this page. It is drawn counter clockwise unlike most of my mazes. You might find that you get dizzier than usual. I know I did.

That's it for today.

Jonathan

Goulet Pen's September 2011 Ink Drop - Part 4

I liked the Diamine Monaco Red and the Noodler's North African Violet well enough that I used them to draw the third page of this month's maze. Both ink worked very well and gave no problems. Here is a picture of the resulting page of the maze. The pens I used are alongside it.

Yesterday I finished my fifth big maze. I took an hour break , but I felt lost and confused without a big project in progress. Now things are back to normal because I started my sixth maze.

Anyway, that's it for today.

Jonathan

A Maze - The End and a Contest!

Today is the day that we finally get the last pages of my first maze. As I mentioned previously I thought it would be fun to have a contest. Simply put, the contest is to see who will be the first to solve this maze. So the goal of this contest is to be the first person to email me the correct solution path.

What I need to see is a list of the nodes you pass through on the correct path.

For example:

1-2A -4A-5C- …. -90C-91-Finish

If this list is not around about 40 nodes long, it will not be the one I'm looking for. I believe that there is only one correct solution, but if you find a valid one that is different than the one I expect, you could still win. I will just have to check your results closely and I may have to email you for clarification.

Please include your name in your email, but you don't have to include an address or phone number. I will contact you by email first if you are the winner. The winning entry will be the first correct valid entry that I receive in my email.

What will you win? Well I'm offering a 15,000 US cent First Prize, which will be paid in the form of a gift card. Also you will receive the Original Art Work of my August Ink Drop Maze which was quite popular. You will also be World Famous!

Email your entry or questions to jmwhitus@yahoo.com.

Here are the final pages of the maze.

Page 90

Page 91

Because it can be a pain to find the pages you need on the blog I have put up a .Zip file on 4shared.com. You can download the entire maze at this link. The resolution of the pages should be better with these files.

Good luck and enjoy!

Jonathan

Goulet Pen's September 2011 Ink Drop - Part 3

The samples in Goulet Pen Company's September Ink Drop all have a travel destination in their name. For the second page of this month's test maze I paired the Caran d'Ache Grand Canyon with Noodler's North African Violet. As I mentioned in my last post I was recently at the Grand Canyon, but I've never actually been in North Africa. I've seen a very small part of it while passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. It was pretty cool to see two continents at the same time.

As I said before the Caran d'Ache is a great ink. I really like the color because it is a neutral brown. It shows off other colors very well. It is a very well behaved ink that dries quickly. Can you tell that I like it?

The Noodler's North African Violet is also a well behaved ink. It also dries quickly. I experienced no smudging or smearing on the two pages I used it on. It is a bright purplish ink, not really as reddish as I would have expected. It worked very well in the Lamy Safari with an Extra Fine nib. The shading wasn't really noticeably with such a fine nib.

Here is a picture of the second page of the maze. The Pilot Vanishing Point and the Lamy Safari that I used are there beside the maze.

By the way, I've done all of the line work for this month's maze, but I haven't put in the node numbers or solved it yet. I'll get on that soon. It is a five page maze. I think it will be fun.

That's it for today.

Jonathan