Happy Friday! This week I wanted to share a few of my favorite tools of the trade (pens) and what I like most about them. I love experimenting with mediums so this gave me a good excuse to make little swatch cards for each to test them all out (I am not a scientist). I decided on making this a two-parter because I could ramble on forever about pens but I want these articles to be easy and relatively quick to read through. Basically, stick around next week for the rest of my pen ramblings!

The first artist-grade pens I used were the Sakura Micron but I never use them anymore. I wasn’t too kind to the nibs….Especially on the rough-press watercolor paper I was using so I had to look for different pens that could handle the abuse I wrought. Below are my most used pens:

1. Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen (M)

These were the second artist-grade pens I started to use. They’re made of India ink so they’re waterproof, a must-have when it comes to drawing under watercolor paintings. There’s nothing I hate more than smudging ink lines that I thought could withstand a couple washes of watercolor. You can’t get varied line widths very well but they come in a range of sizes, including a ‘Brush’ size that allows for more expressive strokes. The size pictured is their ‘Medium’.

2. Pentel Hybrid Technica (05)

These replaced my Microns, mainly because I fell in love with the tungsten-carbide roller tips. They can withstand a lot of abuse and haven’t worn down yet. My only complaint about them would be that they don’t handle several washes of paint. As you can see from the picture above, the ink starts to spread a bit, especially if you don’t give the pigmented ink enough time to dry completely. They come in various sizes, my favorites to use are the smaller, finer sizes like the 03 and 04. By using a light hand, I can achieve finer fines to create texture.

3. Rotring Tikky Graphic (.04)

This is my go-to technical pen when sketching on the go. I love it for it’s ability to create consistent lines and so I use it often when sketching ideas or practicing different strokes to create texture. The only downside I can find for it is that the pigmented ink fades a bit when paint is applied over it and requires another layer of ink to get that rich black again.

4. Tradio Stylo Sketch Pen

One of the first pens I used that wasn’t a ‘technical’ pen.The flexible nib allows for different hand pressures to create varied linework. This is one of my favorite pens to use when practicing fur in ink. Since this pen has a dye-based ink, it does not handle washes over top, as you can see from the picture. When I do use this pen in conjunction with watercolor, it’s applied after the paint has dried.

Well, that’s the end of Part One of my favorite pens! Stay tuned for next week, where I’ll get more bold and crazy with my materials;)

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below!

In case you missed them:

• Tools of the Trade Part 2 – More of my favorite pens to draw with
• “Your Focus Determines Your Reality” – A concept I learned from Star Wars