Review: Kuretake Brush Writer Blendable Color Brush Pens

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

I'm a fan of Kuretake's gray Fudegokochi pen as a tool for adding a water-soluble middle value to sketches.  Here's another option for adding middle values: the Kuretake Brush Writer in light gray ($7.50 at JetPens).  I had been considering these pens for awhile, but finally pulled the trigger after reading Stephanie Law's review.

The Brush Writer line offers a real brush tip set on a squeezable plastic body filled with water-based dye ink.

I tested this pen in violet as well as light gray in order to explore the "blendable" functionality, though if I buy any more of these it'll be the gray and blue-gray since violet and the other colors seem too highly saturated for regular sketching.  When will I ever want to draw a landscape or portrait in bright, straight-ahead purple?  I'd go with Copic's wine, but... not this purple.

Here's the really great thing about the Brush Writer:  the tip is an actual brush, not molded felt, and in fact it looks identical to my excellent Kuretake No. 13 Hair Brush Pen.

Comparing tips, top to bottom: Kuretake Fudegokochi gray pen which is truly a pen rather than a brush, Kuretake Brush Writer in light gray, Kuretake No. 13 hair brush pen loaded with a dark gray ink, and Pentel Color Brush in black.

In the sample above, it looks like the light gray ink in the Brush Writer is significantly lighter than the Fudegokochi.  Below it seems just slightly lighter.  This is all due to the Fudegokochi's variability- it is lighter on sized watercolor paper than on, say, plate bristol. Generally, though, the Fudegokochi is a little darker and warmer than the Brush Writer in light gray.  Both pens wash out with water quite easily, though washing over the Fudegokochi will often leave a trace of your original line. 

The body of the Brush Writer looks a lot like the Pentel Color Brushes which are widely available in the US.  My partner reported that he doesn't use his Pentel Color Brush because he was always hitting feast or famine with it - it would run dry, he'd squeeze the body for more ink, the tip would flood with ink to the point of being unusable, and then as soon as that was cleaned up it would be dry again.  When I tested his Pentel brush, that's exactly what it did for me as well.  I had no such problem with the Kuretake Color Brush. However, when I did experiment with squeezing the body for increased ink flow...

   

...the results were very different in the two Brush Writers.  The light gray brush did exactly what I wanted - it just got a little wetter, enough to change the line from brushy to solid.  The purple brush flooded so I got a blurb of ink on the brush tip and it made little lakes on the surface of my paper. When I squeezed it again, it seemed like ink and air bubbles were practically dripping out of the base around the brush tip.  The only Pentel Color Brush I have ever used behaved just like this purple Brush Writer when squeezed and it required constant squeezing to achieve ink flow, so even with this inconsistent behavior the Brush Writer is ahead... I just wish I could tell you they would all act like the light gray brush, because that one is spot on.  While I am going to recommend this pen, it would be a good idea to test yours first on scrap paper to see if your ink release mechanism is leaky.

The light gray pen had no problems.  The tip offers good control but the loose feel of a brush, and ink flow is good and controllable.   Use it over waterproof ink as a convenient form of gray watercolor. Let it dry, and you gain the ability to layer for a darker gray (though it never becomes waterproof).  I sometimes keep Noodler's Lexington Gray in my brush pen for this kind of work, but for sketching it's great to have a water soluble gray as well and this is a good one.  Sometimes I wished it was a bit darker, but this is "light gray" so perhaps I'll give the regular gray pen a try.

  

If you use the Brush Writer over other water-soluble inks or watercolor, it melds with them beautifully.  It was a lot of fun to use the pen this way.

 

As mentioned above, I got the Brush Writer in purple as well in order to test blending.  It worked fine - the drawing to the right was made with the purple pen, then the light gray was used to blur the purple into shadows - but this techniques works fine with other water-based inks too so I'd just as soon abandon the purple in favor of a fountain pen loaded with an ink of my choice.

The Fudegokochi is great as a pen that works well for line drawings in gray that can be wetted down to simulate watercolors. The Brush Writer has a different role - it won't write like a pen as well as the Fudegokochi, but if you want the do your work with an actual brush and blend into ink or watercolors, it's a great tool.  Just test for potential flooding first.

Review: Noodler's Flexible Nib Piston-Fill Fountain Pen

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

Noodler's Flexible Nib Piston-Fill Fountain Pen is an exciting product unique to its price range.  It costs approximately $14 plus shipping from online retailers - if you can find it in stock.  Both Goulet Pens and I Sell Pens are out of stock at the time of writing but will put you on an email re-stock notification list.  

Besides the clear demonstrator model shown, it also comes in various colors.

In short, this pen is a little bit wonderful and a little bit a pain in the neck.

The body is simple and sturdy, certainly aimed more towards functionality than beauty.  The piston-fill mechanism is easy to use and loads up a fair amount of ink.  The nib leaks a little bit while not in use (note the splatter visible in the photo of the capped pen), but the cap seals well so there have been no accidents.  The tip can draw a very fine line all the way up to a super bold line, and man is it fun to use for making fancy letters.

The drawback of this pen is that there can be flow issues. Even after washing the entire pen out multiple times with soap and warm water, it was a struggle getting it to write consistently. This sample was made with J. Herbin's Poussiere de Lune, and I got similar results using Noodler's Antietam.  Note that some of the letters just... peter out.

This may partially be a matter of getting accustomed to using a flex pen, which requires some care to be taken with angle and speed.  After pages and pages of tests, I did manage to do the animal sketches below using Noodler's Antietam without quite so much trouble as is evidenced by the above writing sample.

 

After a lot of efforts to make this pen behave with the J. Herbin and Noodler's inks, I obtained Waterman's South Seas Blue ink, which is recommended as one of the most free flowing inks around. It did seem to help and enabled some casual sketching on the bus at something close to my regular speed.  Note that because this pen can lay down a broad line, it's especially susceptible to smearing.

After the above sketches I switched back to Antietam to confirm that what I consider a "regular" flowing ink has problems in this pen, and it was absolutely true - the sketch on the right was laborious to make.  I switched back to South Seas Blue to produce the small drawing below, and perhaps you'll see from the sketchiness of that drawing that I was moving much more quickly and it basically worked, though even then the pen ran dry a couple of times.  If your hand moves more slowly than mine as you sketch or write, you'll probably have an easier time of it, but it's still going to be a good idea to use an ink that is reputed to be fast flowing.

One other thing about this pen - it smells terrible, straight out of the box.  Before you use it, take it apart (remove the nib and the plastic feed behind the nib, and unscrew the body parts) and give all the pieces a good, thorough wash with warm water and soap.

The bright side of the Noodler's Flex is that the variable width of the line gives a very distinctive look to any drawing made with it, and that's a lot of fun.  With an ink that shades, the results are reminiscent of bamboo pen drawings but with a more precise minimum width.  This is a perfect pen for showing off a beautiful ink.

When you want a smooth, reliable line you can just go to town with, this pen isn't the one to grab - but if you want an intriguing style that will give your sketches or writing a different look than you've been able to generate before and you don't mind working slowly, the Noodler's flex will provide new and unique opportunities.

Note: If you own a Noodler's flex pen and don't have the flow problems I've talked about, please post a comment and let us know!  Maybe I got a bad nib; maybe there are a lot of other inks that will work well; I'd love to hear more happy stories about this pen especially regarding using it for drawing.

Review: Noodler's Antietam ink

This review is by Kalina Wilson, who can also be found at geminica.com.

Antietam (pronounced something like an-TEE-dum) is not one of the more frequently appreciated colors of Noodler's ink, but I'm a big fan.  This ink is generally described as looking "antique" or like dried blood. It caught my eye while searching for a rich, red-tinted brown, and it fits the bill very, very well.  

This particular color of Noodler's isn't widely available but right now it does appear to be stocked by both Writer's Bloc and Goulet Pens. 

Because the color has such strong shading, it changes a lot depending on what you're using it with - your paper and especially your pen make a huge difference.  In general, the thicker it is laid on and the less absorbent your paper, the more the ink moves towards an extremely rich deep red.  A lighter layer can look like rich orange or thin tomato, depending on the paper and pen.  Some paper pushes it towards brown.

Here's the ink looking like thin tomato, loaded into the cartridge of a Kuretake Hair Brush pen and applied to cream-toned Aquabee watercolor paper. While I don't love the tomato shade, the layering options it allows for are quite fun.

Here it is looking like a rich, antique brown, loaded in a Lamy Safari and laid down in a Moleskine Sketchbook.  These are salvaged architectural pieces sketched last December during a Portland Urban Sketchers expedition to the Architectural Heritage Center.

This was on vintage accounting paper, applied in combination with a Kuretake Fudegokochi gray pen and lots of water (Antietam is a water soluble ink).

These two animal sketches are from the same Moleskine notebook, but the giraffe page had a coat of red acrylic on the opposite side which may have affected the ink absorption... which affected the ink color. I think that's why the giraffe looks a deeper red, while the sloth is a little bit orange.

The Noodler's flexible nib pen (review forthcoming) was a great match for the Antietam ink - check out the gorgeous shading on the sloth's fur. It's a little like what you get from a bamboo dip pen.

Antietam ink has a huge amount of character and a lot to say - all these sketches show different tones, but all the ink came out of the same bottle.  I recommend this ink most highly for use in line drawings using a pen that allows line variation, in which case it adds a lot of energy and shading without the need to add watercolors.  

If you do want to use it in combination with other colors, it will take some caution as the Antietam is strong and can clash with your regular palette, and of course be careful adding water since it is not waterproof - but there's a lot of room for adventure here, and the gorgeousness of the color will make you want to find new ways to use it.