A world of Inktobers…

Brush pen illustration by Juan Maestas, Copyright 2018.

I have been using a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen, soft brush #199. I love it. The point is fine, the bristles are soft. The ink is dark. And I found it at Michael’s for only $5.

I’d rather ink with a brush, but it’s a messy affair- and clean-up is brutal. With a brush pen, you get the experience. However, it’s water soluble ink… meaning that it’s not waterproof and erasers pick up the ink when you try to rub out pencil lines.

I had been teaching myself how to ink for years. I was trying to develop my confidence as nervousness leads to shaky results.

One way to gain confidence is to draw with a ball point pen: I filled up an entire small sketch book with hundreds of messy pen drawings. As I was feeling more confident, I moved on to crowquill. I would also use india ink mechanical pens, but you get no flexibility in the line.

It’s been a few years of on/off use, and you’ve seen me post some stuff before. Now that Jake Parker has released the Inktober 2018 list (here’s a print friendly copy) I am going to use the brush pen as much as possible. Follow @InkTober and @JakeParker on Twitter and Instagram!

A print friendly version of Jake Parker's Inktober 2018 list.