Choose Your Weapon
Are you a sketcher? Do you have a favorite tool, or drawing weapon as I like to call them? I love my mechanical pencil, but it isn’t the best tool for drawing in my current sketchbook. It has a tendency to smear even after a fixative is applied, and a better range of values can be found in a set of drawing pencils.
Although the mechanical pencil offers the convenience of not needing a sharpener, it’s a rather uninteresting tool. Unfortunately it’s usually the first thing I reach for, and I have the most boring sketchbook because of it.
Well, I’m sick of having a boring sketchbook. That’s right, boring, boring, boring. I want color and depth and excitement in there, and I haven’t got any! However, little miss picky-pants also wants a drawing medium for this. I hate losing expensive brushes almost as much as I hate washing them, and colored pencil is very time consuming.
Well, guess what I found? Brush pens from Faber-Castell! It’s pigmented waterproof ink that I don’t have to clean up after. They’re acid free, and have a lightfastness rating on the pen. Neat-o, clean-NO! They come in groovy color sets of 6.
I love these things!
I’m also an admirer of pen and ink drawings. Ink is bold, but unforgiving. I’ve had more than one drawing sabotaged by a flakey pen. I’ve also discovered that no matter where you set the ink bottle, it’s going to get spilled eventually. Yikes!
Regardless of the location, pencils need to be sharpened, brushes require cleaning, and there’s nothing quite like drawing with traditional pen and ink. Or is there?
Katherine Tyrrell recently reported on The Rotring Art Pen, and it looked promising. It’s shaped like the old fashioned pens I remember from high school, but uses ink cartridges instead of an open bottle of ink.
This is one nice drawing pen, folks. It’s comfortable to hold and feels really good in your hand. The ink cartridge pops into the tip, and the cap seals tightly. It comes in a metal box and refill cartridges are included. If you’re looking for a really nice, reasonably priced pen, give the Rotring a try. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Oh, this is so much more fun than pencil!
How about you? What’s in your arsenal today?
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Good for you for looking at different things to draw with.
Don’t forget though that you can get different sorts of leads for your mechanical pencil. All my pencil drawings generally are done with a mechanical pencil - but some are HB, some are B, some are 2B etc
Pentel and Faber Castell do a good range. (Memo to self - must put info. on the ‘to do’ list for blog posts!)
I love the Rotring, and appreciate the time and effort you put into your product reviews.
I’m having problems with older pencil drawings becoming smudged inside the old sketchbook. I’ve tried using the Krylon workable fixative, but it hasn’t helped much. Maybe it was the paper?
I’ll look forward to your lead reviews. I love pencil, but I can’t stand a smudgy sketchbook.
Wow! Those pens really do look like a lot of fun! And I love the color. I need to sketch more often. I will have to put these on my wishlist. Thanks for the review.
: ) Smiles!
The brush pens have been the perfect remedy for a boring sketchbook. Jerry’s has them in sets, and I found individual pens are available at Utrecht. Glad you enjoyed the review.