What was your first Rhodia experience?
My first Rhodia experience was a pair of small gridded No. 11′s that I purchased at Dick Blick. I bought them after reading that one of my favorite jewelry designers kept one in his back pocket at all times. Mine lived in my purse. A few years later, I’d explore additional Rhodia/Clairefontaine options once I’d started writing with a fountain pen and discovered that all paper wasn’t so friendly with water based fountain pen inks.
What do you remember about your first Rhodia experience?
The image above is courtesy of writetomeoften.com. Be sure to visit the blog whose author loves books, cats, stationery, pens, fountain pens, inks, sufi tradition, myths, religions, occult and everything!
Pen Tests Are Part of The Fun
I believe one of the joys of writing with a fountain pen is being able to explore so many different options. From the various nib types to literally hundreds of different ink options in every imaginable color, this allows you to customize your experience which in turn, can make every writing task seem less of a chore and more like like something to look forward to. Rhodia and Clairefontaine papers are consistent performers when paired with these water based inks and can help make your writing experience become even more enjoyable.
Do you have a pen test page like the one above? This is always a fun way to compare which inks are your favorites in which pen. I know some people who choose famous quotations when trying out new inks. Me? I always found myself writing the alphabet or doodling with a new pen/ink.
Image courtesy of heymatthew on Instagram
Knit One, Purl Rhodia
We love seeing how people use our products and I found it pretty interesting that a dotWebbie was helping to maintain the structure of a new knitting pattern. (With Bleu Pervenche ink?)
Though I’ve always wanted to learn to knit, I’m not the type that can tolerate the discipline needed to follow a pattern. My sweaters would come out with three arms, socks with extra toes… you know where I’m coming from? Until that time, I’m happy to buy pretty knitted hats and scarves from local fiber artists.
Do you knit?
Image courtesy of Shangching CH – follow bakanekosan on Instagram.
Enter Now to Win! Stephanie’s 3rd Anniversary Big Giveaway: A Few of My Favorite Things
Can you believe it’s already my 3rd year anniversary writing the Rhodia Drive blog? Guess that means it’s also time to give away a few more of my favorite things!
Exaclair Giveaway at Life Imitates Doodles
Sandra Strait is a member of our Rhodia Journal Swap and an avid Zentangler. She recently reviewed on her blog Life Imitates Doodles, the Exacompta Pocket Portfolio which she turned into a beautifully decorated sketchbook. In the same post she is also offering a giveaway of one of the portfolios, a small Rhodia dotWebbie and also a set of 6 Spectrum Noir alcohol markers – be sure to visit her blog for your chance to win!
Sketches and Doodles in a dotPad
Working out some rough ideas for custom vector symbols, Petr uses the Rhodia dotPad as a daily tool.
We’ve seen many people using the dotPad for sketching and doodling – practicing calligraphy and such. I myself have been known to use the dotPad or the occasional mandala doodle.
What do think it is about the dot grid that makes it so popular for drawing and doodling?
Image courtesy of Petr Vlk follow Petr as imagiag on Instagram.
Rhodia Pad Holders
Have you tried using any of our pad holders and if so, do you like them? Do you find them to be practical for your needs? Do they hold up to the daily punishment of bouncing around in your bag?
Mandala Doodling on a Rhodia dotPad
These days I work in lots of different kinds of art media but I still consider myself a doodler.
It was about 5 1/2 years ago that I first started doodling mandalas- a circular art form typically represented by concentric circular patterns radiating from the center outward. For the first 4 years I drew them almost constantly in sketchbooks, tablets, notebooks, etc., typically with a fountain pen or marker. Sometimes I’d draw up to ten in a single day just by sitting and doodling one after another… this became my meditation.
Do you doodle? Do you do it just to kill time/keep your hands occupied or do actually you make the time to do it?
dotPad Contest Winners!
Much thanks to all who entered our recent contest! The 20 winners are listed below. Be sure to stay tuned for our next Rhodia giveaway!
Bearcat
Dragan Todorovski
Erin from Dallas
Rita K.
Cynthia from Sydney
David Neves
Abe Lugioyo
KenMc
Gino from MA
pds
marianne richmond
Jonathan from Monroe
D. Harris
Davmoco
Mike Clemens
Alejandro C
Bart N
Curtis B
Monophoto
Eric C. from IL
What would be your ultimate Rhodia product?
Imagine if you will for just a moment, a Rhodia Reverse filled with dot grid paper. Leather bound Rhodia Webbies. A 250pg spiral Rhodia notebook. Isometric graph paper. 6-packs of Rhodia pencils…
Knowing how much you love your Rhodia, I know that there is probably a product configuration that you would like to see that doesn’t currently exist. So what is it? Please share! From our recent question on our dotGrid format, I know you’d like to see some spiral bound dot products- me too.
Maybe YOU can inspire a whole new Rhodia product!
Our dotGrid is good for…
The other day when I asked what you thought about our dotPads and dotWebbies, we heard you loud and clear that you loved using them! Many of you shared with us your reasons for liking this format by way of how you use it. One suggestion was to use the dots as a guide for pasting things onto the pages. As in Halstead’s image above, “no more crooked tape!”
I keep a special blank book (glue book?) for pasting images which I use for art inspiration – colors, textures and the like. I’m not too particular with how I paste them in, but I can imagine that it would look even better and become more of a work of art in itself if I were using dot paper.
Do you tape/paste things into your journals?
This video shows an inspiration book similar to what I make:
What do you think of the dots?
The dot grid format is still somewhat new to Rhodia and we are wondering if you might tell us your experiences with it. I typically prefer a completely blank page, but I find the dot format subtle enough to provide structure to the page without being constricting. We offer the dots in two different formats – gray dots on the off-white paper in the Webbie and violet on white in the staple-bound pads.
Are you looking to try the dot format in the future? Any specific ideas on how you will use it?
See how our Swappers are creating in the Journal Swap
We love hearing from you!
We love hearing your feedback as it allows us to tweak our products and expand our offerings to you. It is because of your comments and feedback that we have specifically improved upon the quality and expanded the variety of options on the Webnotebook. Your enthusiasm for our dot grid format has allowed us to offer the dotPad in additional sizes and we’ve even added an additional cover option in Rhodia’s signature orange. Continue Readering »
Official Call for Entries for the 2012 Rhodia Journal Swap: “Favorite Things”
It’s here! Time to roll our our first ever Rhodia Journal Swap: “Favorite Things.” Interested in participating? Read on, then please fill out the form below by Jan 18th. We’d love if you would share this opportunity with your friends! Questions? Please submit via comments. Continue Readering »
Special uses for dots?
It turns out that our dotPads and dotWebbies are extremely popular and I got to wondering who may have discovered any special or unique uses for the dotted paper. I know I’ve seen several people use them for practicing calligraphy – and one person told me they used them for mapping computer networks. I can personally envision them being used for designing a garden, drawing up plans for a dream home or creating a map to a stash of buried treasure.
How are you using your dots? Show me and I might just share here on the blog – send pics to stephanie@rhodiadrive.com
