The Faber-Castell PITT Set includes four different sizes of markers: B (Brush), C (Chisel/Calligraphy), 1.5 (1.5 mm Bullet), and 2.5 (2.5 mm Bullet). I was hoping that the largest size would be useful for posters but its not quite that chonky. Overall, the Faber-Castell PITT set has a nice range of sizes if you’re not sure what will work best for your project.

The photo above shows the tip sizes. From left to right: chisel/calligraphy, brush, 1.5 mm and 2.5 mm. The 2.5 mm barrel is much larger than the other three pens so its a big pen for me to hold in my tiny, little hands.

The other pen I got was the Pentel Milky Brush pen in white. There is a push button on the end that can be pushed to force more ink into the brush tip.

Oh, that brush tip! Its a nylon bristle brush tip not a molded foam tip like the brush in the Faber-Castell PITT set. I love the brushes that have real bristles because the point is often so much finer. The bristles are soft and flex easily for a great range of stroke widths. Pumping the end will add more ink as needed.

I tested these pens on kraft and grey paper stock. They all performed much better on the kraft stock. The grey paper was a bit too light to show them in their best light (or should I say, best white?)

On the Kraft stock, it was easy to get good results with all the markers though I do find that the Pentel Milky Brush was more opaque overall. The PITT markers worked well and could be applied with multiple layers for a more opaque coverage/

Despite the grey paper being a bit light, it does quickly show that the Pentel Milky Brush is much more opaque with one pass of color compared to the PITT white markers.

Further testing is needed to determine how well these markers will work with mixed media drawings when combined with colored pencils, other pens and markers and paint. The PITT pens are India ink so they are lightfast, permanent, and archival. That is definitely an advantage if you are using these with other tools. The Pentel Milky Brush is listed as being water-resistant but there are no additional specifications though with white inks, they are likely to be lightfast.

Depending on your comfort with a real brush pen, I would recommend giving the Pentel Milky Brush a try. If you prefer a bullet tip or chisel tip or need the archival or guaranteed permanent quality, then I think the PITT Brush Set is a good option though I prefer the Pentel Milky Brush overall.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

The post Pen Review: White Markers from Faber-Castell & Pentel appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

I’m always on the lookout for opaque white pens. They come in handy for many urban sketching tasks, such as signage, fountains and small highlights. Of course, I use them most often on toned paper, especially in my favorite red Field Notes Brand Sweet Tooth notebook (no longer available at Field Notes, but possibly still available at some retail stores).

Years ago, I compared the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen (2.5mm bullet point), Sakura Pen-Touch Paint Marker and Uniball Signo gel pen. More recently I looked at the Uni Posca Paint Marker (extra fine bullet point) and the Sailor Mini Correction Pen here at the Desk.

Although my general white go-to the past few years has been the Sakura Gelly Roll (0.8mm), I’m not always happy with it. It’s fine tipped and opaque enough to draw or make highlights on dark paper, and I use it that way satisfactorily most of the time. But since gel ink is water-soluble, it tends to activate watercolor pencil pigment rather than write over it, making the line inconsistent or invisible.

I decided it was time to try a couple of new white pens that recently crossed my ever-watchful radar: One is a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen with a 1.5mm bullet nib (much smaller than the 2.5mm I had tried previously). The other is a Uni Posca Paint Marker with a 0.7mm “pin type” nib (which came in my October SketchBox, but I don’t see it sold individually there yet).

Although the Gelly Roll has a 0.8mm nib, it looks slightly finer than the Posca’s 0.7mm point, though it could just look that way because the Gelly Roll is less opaque. The Faber-Castell Pitt is the least opaque of the three, and strangely, its 1.5mm tip looks about the same size as the Posca’s 0.7. I have no idea how pen points are measured. In any case, in my scribble tests below (made in a black Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook), I applied water on the right side, and none of the inks showed appreciable smudging, even though I know the Gelly Roll has been known to dissolve a bit when washed. The other two are described as waterproof.

Next I ran each white pen over various water-soluble and waterproof media. All wet media were left to dry completely before I scribbled over them. No wonder I’ve been less than happy with the Gelly Roll when used with my favorite watercolor pencils – it performed the worst over Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles, both dry and activated. None of the three white pens wrote well over the Marvy LePlume II watercolor markers, but all three showed up much better over the two waterproof brush pens – the Pentel Pocket Brush and the Sakura Pigma. Clearly, the Posca is the winner on watercolor as well as my favorite watercolor pencils (both activated and dry).

The big inconvenience with the Posca is its “pin type” nib, which means it must be primed each time before use. By priming, I mean that you must jab the spring-loaded nib repeatedly on scrap paper for a while until the ink flows. Moreover, the ink is actually paint that must be shaken each time (you can hear an agitator inside rattling around to aid with mixing). Skip either of these steps, and the pen dispenses a colorless liquid. The priming and shaking tasks are annoying when all you want to do is make a quick highlight (sketch victims get away quickly!).

Still, the Posca’s general opacity and especially with watercolor pencils has won me over.

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

The post Pen Review: White Pen Comparison: Gelly Roll, Posca 0.7 and Pitt 1.5 Bullet Nib appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Review by Tina Koyama

I had two main reasons for wanting to try White in the DeAtramentis Document waterproof ink series (available in 19 colors). Holiday cards often come with red or green envelopes, so I thought it would be fun to try addressing some of mine with white ink. That was my holiday motivation. My sketching motivation was that I use a white Sakura Gelly Roll gel pen fairly frequently – most often in a red Field Notes Sweet Tooth notebook – but Gelly Rolls are water-soluble, and that’s occasionally a problem when I combine it with wet media. I wondered if waterproof Document ink would be a good option for both purposes.

Before I get to the ink itself, let’s address the more immediate pen issue. My intention was to fill a fountain pen with it, but once I chose a pen, it took forever to sufficiently flush what I thought was an already clean nib to use it with white ink. No matter how many times I flushed it, traces of the pen’s previous blue ink were visible.

I got so tired of flushing and reflushing that I finally gave up and decided to use a dip nib. (I guess that would have been the smarter choice anyway, but I’m not well-practiced in dipping, so I thought the fountain pen would be easier.) If you want to use this ink in a fountain pen, I recommend buying a brand new one and dedicating it to white ink only. You have been warned!

I was a little disappointed that this ink isn’t more opaque. Compared to my white Gelly Roll, which is an opaque, consistent white, Document White is milkier and has areas that are less opaque. I shook my sample to see if that would help, but I didn’t notice any difference. The brush swatch, especially, shows the lack of consistency in opacity.

My writing sample was done on a red page of a Shizen Design multi-colored notebook, where you can see varying degrees of opacity depending on the thickness of the line and how recently I had dipped. If I were adept at using a flex nib to get lots of thicks and thins, the variety would be interesting and probably attractive.

I’ve seen examples online of calligraphers using white acrylic ink to write on dark papers with lovely results, so this ink might be a good candidate for that (though not by me). Used with a heavier nib, the uneven opacity would be less of an issue, and the ink is certainly waterproof, so it would be a fun option for those colored envelopes.

TOOLS

• Paper: Shizen Design notebook
• Pen: Zebra Comic G nib (10/$13.50)
• Swatch: Black Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook ($19.99)
• Brush: Weber Prima round 6 ($4.99)
• Ink: DeAtramentis Document White ($19.95)

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

The post Inkmas Day 3: DeAtramentis Document White appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.