Does Anyone Use Brush Pens?

[manoli]

Do you use Brush refillable pens?

[TrinityTam]

I own and use a Pentel brush pen and a Kuretake 13 brush pen. I own, but have not yet inked, a Kuretake 50 brush pen with weasel hair. I use them for sketching. I have only used Platinum Carbon ink cartridges so far with my brush pens. I may have to try something different with the Kuretake 50 since I've heard that the natural hair brushes don't go well with carbon ink. But that pen came with a converter, so I have lots of options.

[Dr.Grace]

Why would carbon ink not work with weasel hair brushes? I'm just asking because I've used natural hair brushes (not brush pens) with Chinese soot-based ink for painting and calligraphy. That tradition goes back a thousand years.

 

I'm interested to learn about the Kuretake 50 because I haven't been impressed with the characteristics of the synthetic brush pens. Too soft.

[TrinityTam]

I've looked extensively online for information about carbon inks in natural hair brushes and this is the most definitive statement I've found: http://www.stutler.cc/other/sketchbook/sketchbook_c_03.html Since Russ Stutler is highly experienced and well-regarded in matters of sketching, I defer to his expertise in this. I have read somewhere that a good test would be to buy a cheap natural hair watercolor brush and leave it in some platinum carbon ink over time and see if it does anything. Since I only own carbon ink in cartridges, I haven't tried that yet.

[Dr.Grace]

Thanks, that's really a great article!

 

I see now why carbon inks can be problematic. The inks typically used for traditional brushes contain a glue that bonds the ink to paper, and we always rinse out the brushes completely after each use. With brush pens, that kind of ink would defeat the purpose of having an instrument that's portable and always available for quick drawings.

[FunkeyMonk]

I have a Pentel brush pen that I use to doodle and use up the inks that I don't like for my fountain pens.

I just rubbed some grease on the threads and I use it as a huge eyedropper pen, and right now it's full of a greenish-blue mix of all the ink samples I didn't like.

[ObserveClosely]

Do you use Brush refillable pens?

I do. Like the variability of the mark they make.

 

Roz Stendahl, author of the RozWoundUp blog, uses the heck out of them. Sampling of posts here. I am sure she'd be happy to answer any questions you may have on the tool.

[ObserveClosely]

See a broad variety of brush pens here.

[pictogramax]

I've been using brush pens for years.

 

My absolute favorite is Pentel Pocket brush: http://www.jetpens.com/Pentel-Pocket-Brush-Pen-for-Calligraphy/pd/1793

 

I still have two of them I bought seven years ago and they just keep on working. The ink that comes in their cartridges is also great so I felt no need to use Platinum Carbon Black (which is great in it's own way and used regularly in my fountain pens).

 

I have tried also Kuretake, but it seemed "wetter" than Platinum and with a different, sligtly mushier feel to the nib, so I gave up on it.

 

I wanted to like Noodler's brush pen, because of the piston and the ability to easily change ink colors in it, but the tip turned to "bush" in just a few days. What a dissapointment. I have plans to replace the tip with one of Blue Heron's brushes, so I could keep using the piston.

 

Blue Heron's brushes are cheap and consequently cheaply made, their piston leaves far less secure and precise impression to Noodler's, but the tips (both natural and sythetic) are miles better. These are my regular colored ink brushes now, until I manage to weld Blue Heron's tip to Noodler's piston and profit from strenghts of both.

 

Pentel's Aquash brushes are good also, if you use them as planned - that is to fill them with water and use with classic watercolour pans. If you wish to sip coloured ink in their barrels, it's great also if you invest in several and use each for a chosen color. But washing them out of one color and replacing with other is almost impossible. Given the price, one should not really try it, but as I have to order them from abroad, I didn't want to wait:-)

[79spitfire]

I use them for holding water with to use with watercolor pencils, I'm afraid I'm not much of a Japanese Calligrapher yet...

[ObserveClosely]

I just got the Kuretake No 13 Fountain Hair Brush pen and took it out for a spin yesterday.

 

Below is a quick sketch I did using the new pen on tinted textured paper, of the Mercury Fountain at the NGA (www.nga.gov/volunteer/pdf/mercury_infosheet.pdf), using Herbin Perle Noire ink. I also used some burnt sienna, blue, and white pencils.