In Pencil Review

Pencil Review: Blackwing Red & Blue Pencils

Author AnaPosted on 5 Comments
Pencil Review: Blackwing Red & Blue Pencils

Somehow, I managed to miss the first two releases of the Blackwing Red & Blue colored pencils. The first version was a special edition red/blue combo pencil and then they released the full red and blue pencils in sets… maybe last year? Either way, by the time I went to order them, they had sold out of both of those editions. But somehow, this spring I was able to get a box of each the Red & Blue pencils ($15 per box). The box sets each include 4 pencils in a vac-form plastic tray in a slipcase sleeve.

I found it quite difficult to get the pencils out of the vac-form tray. So much so, I was worried I would end up scratching the finish on the pencils because they were wedged in there so tightly. In the end, I did get them out but why did the tray have to be quite so snug?

The pencils have a matte finish coating on the barrels making them easy to hold. Both have gold ferrule and bright white eraser caps.

As you will see in the next photo, the inclusion of the erasers may be more for looks that usability.

I tested the red and blue pencils on two different paper stocks (kraft and Col-o-ring paper). Both papers are the type of paper I would use for sketching or drawing with a bit of tooth. The pencil leads are soft and creamy with good color. As a result of the softness, the point retention is only okay.

I often draw with a blue pencil as they are consider “non-repro” and ink can be applied over. Then artwork can be scanned and the blue (or red) can easily be removed in Photoshop. Animators often use red pencils where illustrators and commercial artists favor non-repro blue.

I compared both the blue and red with some of my favorite red/blue pencils as well as a few standalone colored pencils specifically used by illustrators for this type of work.

When comparing the blue pencil from Blackwing to the red/blue combo pencils, none of the red/blue combo pencils actual feature a non-repro blue color. Instead they tend to have a deep Prussian Blue.

Both the Staedtler and Col-Erase pencils have much firmer cores making the point retention better and the lines smoother and less likely to be affected by paper texture.

The standalone pencils from Prismacolor Col-Erase and Caran d’Ache Sketcher are more comparable. A box of 12 Col-Erase are under $12 ($1/pencil) which is much more cost effective than the Blackwings. The Caran d’Ache pencil is comparable in price at about $6-$7 for a set of two pencils but even Caran d’Ache is CHEAPER than the Blackwings. Go figure.

With the red pencils, all three Japanese red/blue combos have a much warmer, tomato red. I tend to use the Col-Erase Vermillion most often (as you can see by how stumpy the pencil is) which is similar in color to the Japanese red/blue pencils but I do bounce back and forth with the Carmine which is a cooler red. That said, the Prismacolor Verithin Red in the metallic red/blue pencil in the photo above is closest in color to the Blackwing Red but a much firmer core designed for point retention and fine detail.

As previously mentioned, I’m likely to recommend the Prismacolor Col-Erase Carmine or Vermillion over the Blackwing for cost, firmness and point retention. The Carmine is available in a box of 12 on Amazon for less than $12, which is a GOOD deal.

Due to the softness of these pencils, the line widths got pretty thick pretty fast. I am not inclined to switch from my Prismacolor Verithins or Col-Erase which are a bit firmer. They don’t really erase any better than the Blackwings, despite what the name might lead you to believe.

While the aesthetics of the Blackwings remain top-notch, $15 for 4 pencils ($3.75 each) is getting pretty ridiculous. A Primsacolor Col-Erase (in oh-so-handy Carmine Red or Cyan/Non-Repro Blue) can be purchased, open stock, for about $1.50 (more than half the price of the Blackwings).

So, while I really wanted to try these, I will not purchase any more of them. They are just too expensive and not as useful as other brands for what I use red and blue pencils to create.

DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review.

This review also includes affiliate links. The Well-Appointed Desk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Please see the About page for more details.

In Art Supplies

Watercolor Review: Akashiya Gansai and Kuretake Gansai Tambi

Author AnaPosted on 2 Comments
Watercolor Review: Akashiya Gansai and Kuretake Gansai Tambi

Review by Tina Koyama

I took a watercolor class a few months ago that left me frustrated. Using a limited palette of pigments, I wanted to learn to mix colors. As I tried to achieve the hues I was looking for, my paint mixes would become increasingly diluted. I’d add more paint to get a thicker concentration, but then I’d have to adjust the mix again, over and over. With practice and help from my instructor, I got better at it eventually, but I started to see the benefit of having lots of pigments easily accessible, all on one palette – without mixing!

Ana had reviewed 36 of the Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors a few years ago, and I liked the range of colors I saw. Kuretake now offers a total of 48 colors, sold as a single set or in two sets of 24 colors each. I decided to try color set A (24/$29.50; color set B is 24/$38).

Just as I was thinking about all this, I suddenly remembered that I had a set of 24 Akashiya Gansai Watercolors ($37) that I had purchased years ago but hadn’t used much. My product reviewer’s mind clicked into gear: Wouldn’t it be fun to compare these two sets!

Their presentations are very similar: Unlike what I think of as a typical watercolor set, with paint pans fitting solidly together in a box, both Akashiya and Kuretake sets are made of loose, individual pans that can be removed easily from their cardboard box and rearranged or replaced (JetPens sells open stock pans for both lines). This form factor makes them impractical for field use, as it would be more than easy to drop the box in transport and see the paint pans go flying. (Kuretake does offer a version of its Gansai paints in a portable palette.)

The upside of this form factor is that the pans are larger than standard (Western style) full-size pans, so it’s possible to use large, flat brushes to make wide washes without a mixing tray. (I also have a Sakura Koi Watercolor Field Sketch Box, but without mixing, the tiny pans can only be used with small brushes.) The Akashiya pans are 1 3/8-inch squares, while the Kuretake pans are 1-by-1 ¾ inches.

Both products consist of artist-quality, lightfast, non-toxic paints. They are made in a traditional Japanese way that can give the result a slightly glossy, opaque finish when heavily applied. Like watercolors, some pigments are more opaque than others, but I wouldn’t say any are as opaque as gouache.

My Akashiya set is more than 10 years old, and some paints have cracked and shrunk so that they are now loose and rattling around in their pans. I don’t think the paint quality has degraded, however. I’ve sometimes seen aged gouache pans shrink in the same way, so perhaps these watercolors contain some of the same binders as gouache.

Akashiya helpfully puts the color number and name on the side of the pan for easy viewing (but unhelpfully in Japanese only).

Kuretake includes the same information in both Japanese and English on the less accessible bottom of the pan. It also includes the number and Japanese color name on the box tray itself. This feature I find less useful, since I might want to rearrange the colors to suit the way I work.

Next I’ll show the color ranges. Each set includes a blank color chart on the inside of the box lid for making swatches. Unfortunately, in both cases, the cardboard lid’s paper doesn’t show the colors to best effect, so I made additional swatch charts in a Hahnemühle watercolor sketchbook. The black grid lines are intended to show opacity (and apparently, I can’t count when I’m drawing lines).

Akashiya colors:

Kuretake colors:

In general, this Akashiya palette is more muted, while the Kuretake set is more saturated. (Kuretake’s Set B looks like a more muted range.) Interestingly, the Akashiya set includes metallic gold and silver, which are unusual in any watercolor set.

With basic comparisons done, it was time to put the pedal to the metal. I had just purchased a bright bouquet of peonies from a family of flower growers who have a weekend kiosk at our neighborhood gas station. Despite my initial impressions from swatches that the Akashiya paints were less vibrant, I had no problem achieving intense hues in this sketch (the rough lines and marks you see on some flowers were made with watercolor pencils). My method was to dip a Kuretake water brush into the paints and apply them directly to a Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook page with no mixing or blending except as it occurred on the paper. Looking at my swatch sheet as a color guide, it was fun not to otherwise test the colors first to see if they were “right” (which I am constantly doing when I mix in a separate mixing tray). Aside from my enthusiasm resulting in a bit of overworking, I was happy with this test sketch.

The following weekend, I bought another bouquet, this time to take to the cemetery on Memorial Day. Using the same methods and the same water brush and sketchbook, I painted the bouquet with the Kuretake set. This bouquet had lighter pink blossoms than the first one and a challenging white peony, too. I was thrilled by the hues I was able to achieve with no laborious mixing. And even though the paints look intense in my swatches, giving my water brush a squeeze as I dipped into the paints gave me nice pale tints for the lavender and pink blossoms. Again, it was great fun being able to simply dip and paint without all that mixing fuss! In fact, I know now why I like to paint this way – it’s more like using colored pencils!

Looking at the two sets together, the palettes complement each other well. I like the selection of greens better in the Kuretake set, but the Akashiya set includes some lovely muted tones (not to mention gold and silver). I don’t think I can say one is better than the other in terms of quality, so the choice is more a matter of colors included in the sets. In terms of packaging, I prefer the Kuretake’s tray, which may be slightly more secure than the Akashiya box, which has nothing but the box itself holding the pans together.

Some would point out that it’s more economical to buy tube paints and fill my own empty palette. But what’s the fun in that? Both of these Gansai (which means “vibrance”) sets are the colored pencils of paints: An instantly gratifying rainbow in a box. Get yourself one for the next time you feel compelled to paint a bouquet (which I heartily recommend for an immediate lift in your spirits).

DISCLAIMER: Some 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.

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

In Link Love

Link Love: Double Duckin’

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment

I remember when the rubber duck first went for a cruise around Hong Kong harbor ten years ago. I was tickled to see that in honor of the ten year anniversary of the first time the giant, yellow bathtub buddy set sail, they are launching TWO ducks in Hong Kong Harbor this weekend. It makes me wish I was in HK to see this in person but I will delight in knowing they have set sail in honor of my birthday. “Rubber ducky, you’re the one!” — or is that two? (link for the full article is in Other Interesting Things)

Pens:

Ink:

Notebooks & Paper:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things:

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In Fountain Pen Review, Pen Review

Pen Trends: Dip Nib Mania

Author Laura CameronPosted on 4 Comments

A few weeks ago while browsing Yoseka Stationery, I noticed they had an MD Dip Pen (from Midori) listed. Curious about it, I added one to my cart to try. When I mentioned it to Ana, she noted she had both a Pilot Iro-Utushi and a Sailor Hocoro she was planning to review. I picked them up from her last week and so my review is a little compare and contrast of three new-ish dip nib pens on the market.

Dip nibs are not a new concept. In fact, they much more closely resemble some of the original quills and pens that didn’t have ink reservoirs from which to draw from. Imagine the old-time writer dipping a nib in ink, writing a few letters or words, and dipping again. Today, many folks use dip nibs to test a variety of inks, play with new nibs, or do quick sketches or drawings. I’m not aware of anyone who uses dip nibs as their primary writing instrument (maybe Michael Sull with his Spencerian Script).

So today I’ll be looking at three pens:

  • MD Dip Pen ($28, purchased with my own funds from Yoseka Stationery)
  • Pilot Iro-Utushi (retails for $11-$26, given to Ana by Pilot USA)
  • Sailor Hocoro ($16.00, purchased with Ana’s funds from Yoseka Stationery)

MD Dip Pen

At the most expensive and weighty end of the spectrum, this all started with the MD Dip Pen from Midori. The pen is only available in a Medium nib as far as I can tell, and it isn’t removable. The pen body is plastic and weighs the most of the pens I tested at 11g. The length is comparable to the others.

The Pros: I like the weight of this one – though I know many prefer lighter pens, this one feels really lovely in my hand. It was probably middle of the road in terms of being able to write at length – sometimes I managed to get through a whole line, sometimes I needed to re-dip fairly quickly.

The Cons: The price. You can get the other dip nib pens for a bit cheaper, and even get some additional choice and functionality.

Pilot Iro-Utushi

This pen was the longest, and the tapered body was interesting looking. The pen is available with two nibs and two body choices. Opt for plastic for $11, or upgrade to wood at $26. The nib is not removable.

Pros: With two nibs and two body types to choose from (and a few colors available in each) you have some choice with this one. The plastic body puts it at the cheapest of the three models, and the nib was my favorite out of the three to write with.

Cons: The only con on this one for me is that the nib isn’t removable. It’s not unique in that, but if I could put other Pilot nibs in this body, I’d probably be inclined to invest in this one.

Sailor Hocoro

The Sailor Hocoro was the most interesting option that I tested. It’s available in 4 different nib types, including calligraphy nibs, which I tried. The most unique part of this pen is that the nibs are interchangeable. And they pop out and can be inverted (the nib fits into the hollow barrel) for storage. That makes this one the most versatile of your dip pen options I tried.

The Pros: The combo of the price and the versatility make this pen my top choice of the three I tested. It’s cute, provides easy on-the-go storage and is comfortable in the hand.

The Cons: The calligraphy nib was fun to play with but they most frustrating to use of all the nibs I tested. I think this is because it’s basically a stub nib, and lays down quite a bit of ink. It means that the ink was very inconsistent, and it ran out quite quickly, requiring lots of dipping. I’d love to test out the fine or fude nib.

My overall conclusion is that I have a limited use case for dip nib pens. I use them most often when doing ink reviews, as it allows me to show how the ink would appear in a variety of thicknesses, and exhibit shading and sheening if it has any. I have tested a few dip nibs in the past, and tend to stick with my tried and true Delike Glass Signature Pen (spoiler: it’s not really glass). What I love about it is the ability to switch the nibs out, and that the glass nib holds a bunch of ink, meaning I don’t have to dip as frequently.

DISCLAIMER: Some of these items in this post were purchased with my own funds, others were provided for free or at discounted cost for the purposes of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Fountain Pen Review

Fountain Pen Review: Sailor Line Friends Cony (NA Exclusive)

Author AnaPosted on Leave a comment
Fountain Pen Review: Sailor Line Friends Cony (NA Exclusive)

I was totally caught by surprise when I saw the new North American exclusive Sailor ProGear Line Friends CONY Fountain Pen ($312). I squealed with delight at how cute it was! I am not familiar with the Line Friends series, but the characters look a lot like Sanrio-esque cute Japanese characters. I grew up as a Hello Kitty kid (quite the opposite to the goth teen I became, right?).

There have been some previous characters like a bear and a duck but oh, the pink CONY bunny! The design of the pen was more interesting as well.  I haven’t bought a new fountain pen for myself in awhile and then in the same week, I found the BENU Skull & Roses Crow and the CONY — the two sides of my Gemini personality, one half cute and the other, a little spooky. I hit Buy It Now and didn’t look back.

Are the current Sailor Pro Gear fountain pens quite expensive? Yes. Should I be supporting this kind of financial excessiveness? No. Did I buy it anyway? Yes.

The pen body is a mix of material colors: the cap is translucent pink with an opaque pink end cap, the body is a milky white with an opaque black end cap. The grip section (shown in a photo below) is a milky pink. The whole pen features silver hardware.

Through the milky barrel, it’s possible to see the color of the converter.

So, of course the converter is pink!

The end cap on the cap feature the smiley face of CONY.

And the best part? The engraved CONY on the nib.

I love the Sailor 14K EF nib and despite efforts to expand my nib options, for everyday journal and daily writing, I always go back to the Sailor 14K EF nib as my go-to. My first ink pick for the pen was Sailor Studio 237 but it was a bit too light with the EF nib. Monteverde Kindness is a much brighter pink than I had wanted to use but is way easier to read.

My conclusions: do I recommend that you drop over $300 for a limited edition Sailor ProGear Slim? Only if you have the cash and want a pink bunny pen. Do I recommend a ProGear Slim in general? Yes. Despite the escalating prices, the Sailor ProGear is still one of the best pens I’ve ever owned and there’s a reason why I have more than one.

DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.

In Fountain Pen Review

Fountain Pen Reivew: Benu Skull & Roses Crow Fountain Pen

Author AnaPosted on 4 Comments
Fountain Pen Reivew: Benu Skull & Roses Crow Fountain Pen

Inside me there is still a 16-year-old goth girl. There. I’ve said it. I outed myself. So, when I saw the Benu Skull & Roses Crow Fountain Pen ($163) I knew I had to have it.

I first saw the Skull & Roses pens at the LA Pen Show at the  Dromgoole’s tables where Jesi and I were working. We both debated buying the pens on the table but we had so many people checking them out that we both waited to see if the pens sold at the show.

Then we got all “quick! we gotta pack up!” and I forgot to grab the Skull & Roses pen. A few weeks after returning from the pen show, I started thinking, “Dang! I wish I had bought that BENU,” but by that point, I couldn’t find the pen in stock anywhere.

I gave up getting one, until I saw that Truphae had them in stock and, as June is my birthday month, I decided to celebrate still being a kid, and bought it for myself.

The BENU packaging is pretty uneventful (and hence, not photographed) and that’s fine by me. It’s a simple white box with gold lettering and the pen is in a white, paperboard tube cushioned in paper shred inside. While the packaging is fully recyclable it doesn’t give away the cacaphony of color or funkiness going on inside the box. Sneaky.

The Skull & Roses Crow is a pretty silly pen all things considered.  It utilizes a traditional tapered, cigar shape with deeply engraved roses along the cap and barrel and a ring of engraved skulls around the cap band. The pen is a solid black plastic material with a texture in the non-embossed areas to give the pen a leather-like look — kind of like the texture on an old book.One might think of it as a budget-friendly subtler version of the Chaos pen (IYKYK).

If you look closely, you can see the letters BENU hidden in the rose vines.

The pen did come with a universal cartridge converter which I filled with “be still my Goth-y heart” Sailor Studio 350.

The nib is a standard Schmidt #5 nib. Love ’em or hate ’em, BENU uses Schmidt nibs. I got the EF nib and it was a little scratchy but I used a bit of micromesh and was able to smooth it out. I’m spoiled from years of using Sailor nibs so I still find the nib to be a bit stiff and not as fine as I’d like it but its a decent nib.

Specs:

  • Length: 5.375 (capped)
  • Length  5″ (uncapped)
  • Weight 21gms (capped and filled)
  • Weight 16gms (uncapped with full converter)

The smooth grip section is about 0.875″ long with a minimal step down from the threads and an added bit of smooth matte grip area along the pen body creating a space of about 1.5″ overall to grip the pen without coming into contact with the deep sculpted designs.  For some, the deeply engraved exterior and small size may cause pressure on your hand from the design. I didn’t find the sculpted body to be too bothersome for everyday notetaking but I wouldn’t choose this pen to do NaNoWriMo or other marathon writing.

The cap is not really post-able which limits the length.

The Skull & Roses is also available in a translucent red and a mixed black-body-with-translucent-red band called Smolder (currently sold out).

In the end, the plus sides are the ridiculously goth-y design, lightweight and reasonable price. For some folks the downside would be the small Schmidt nib, not post-able and too much engraving that may interfere with overall writing comfort. My thinking is that if you are attracted to the design, the “downsides” can be overlooked because… c’mon, skulls & roses!

DISCLAIMER: Some items were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: Octopus Write & Draw Inks Part 2

Author Jessica ColesPosted on Leave a comment

If you missed it, make sure you read first part of the Octopus Write & Draw inks review! Again, due to the large number of inks in this line, I am only showing an overview of the Write & Draw colors rather than comparing colors to other inks in my collection. This line consists of 25 pigment inks!

The Write & Draw ink line consists of 50mL glass bottles that I have found for $17.33 at Vanness Pen Shop. This works out to about $0.35 per mL – a great deal for colorful water resistant inks.

The color lineup today isn’t as colorful as part 1. Here we have the blues, grays, greens, and the one black ink. Blue Koi is a brilliant sapphire blue, Grey Meerkat is a neutral grey, and my favorite blue – Blue Lynx.

Grey Fox is one that I would classify as a blue-black.

I have a feeling that Petrol Axolotl will be a popular choice in this line – a dark teal that reminds me of the popular Taccia Sabimidori ink. Green Eagle is a nice bright green that leans a bit towards yellow, but not much.

The last three colors – Green Squirrel, Grey Frog, and Black Elephant make quite a trio. Green Squirrel is a fun muddy green and Black Elephant is a deep, dark, opaque black – as a pigment ink, it can achieve the true black not found in dye based inks.

Octopus Write & Draw inks on Midori Cotton paper:

Octopus Write & Draw inks on Tomoe River 52gsm (TR7) paper:

Octopus Write & Draw inks on Midori MD paper:

Octopus Write & Draw inks on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:

 

In part 1 of this review, I promised to test the water resistance of the Octopus Write & Draw inks. To test this, I first sprinkled several drops of water on every color swatch – here I’m showing the test on Midori MD paper.

After letting this sit for one minute, I blotted each swatch with a clean paper towel.

Not a single trace of ink on the paper towel.

I repeated this with the inks from part 1. The same result. I could not get the ink off the paper.

I decided on another test – I held the Black Elephant swatch under running water for 30 seconds and again blotted the paper dry. Nothing. The swatch looked identical before and after the flowing water.

I am truly impressed with the water resistance of the Write & Draw inks. Colorful waterproof inks are hard to find, but I have found all 25 colors to withstand brutal levels of water. I would consider these a great purchase at their price point.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided at a discount by Vanness Pen Shop for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.