Drawing from Nature

Quill pens have been used as writing implements for centuries, the number of which isn’t definitively known, though there are accounts of their use as early as the sixth century A.D. Compared with reed pens, quill pens are flexible and responsive to light variations of touch and pressure. They have a gliding action when drawn across paper, creating lines that are smooth, fluid, and flexible. This responsiveness gives you the ability to control the width of a line by varying downward pressure. The harder you push down, the wider the line becomes.

Artists took notice of these favorable properties in the 12th century, when quills became preferred over reeds for drawing as well as writing. This was the case for most of the old masters, even as