While watching a video on YouTube recently, I saw someone use a brush-pen filled with water, a tool I’ve never before seen. I’ve been using a Cintiq now for a couple of years and have been out of the loop as far as traditional media goes. However, I thought the waterbrushes looked like fun, so I ordered a pack made by Derwent. It comes with three brushes, each with a different tip shape/size. They arrived in the mail a couple of days ago and I only had a chance to sit down and noodle around with them.
I have a Sheaffer White Dot Balance fountain pen with a lever-fill, like the kind you used to see in slapstick routines where someone uses a fountain pen to squirt ink into another person’s face. After watching too many Three-Stooges films as a kid, I had to track one of these pens down. Anyway, I like using it to doodle using coffee-brown ink by J.Herbin (the color name is “Cafe Des Iles”).
I don’t use these tools for finished work or any of my professional work. It’s just something for fun when I want to noodle around. Combining the water brushes with the ink pen has added another dimension to these doodling excursions. If you haven’t tried it yet, this Derwent pack is very affordable to experiment with and play around.
Anyone else out there using these brushes? If so, how’d you like them?
Frank Grau Illustration 
Cool stuff.
I do something similar. Have since I was a kid. I write down snippets. Then file them away.
Sometimes they get resurrected for use in columns, Bible studies, Facebook posts, even. It’s a compulsion.
At your service in Christ . . .
Mark
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Yup, it’s good to record and file away those small ideas that can be utilized later or used as a springboard to get the creative juices flowing.
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That coffee colour and texture seems to produce an old-school sepia tone. I dig the earthy aspects in the illustrations. The only non-digital gear I’ve used and own, are oils and acrylics for weathering, and air-brushing dioramas/plastic model aircraft builds.
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Hey, did you ever paint with instant coffee (basically using it like watercolor paint)? It’s pretty cool. I guess that’s why I like this particular ink color, i.e., because it has that sepia tone.
I still have tons of oil and acrylic paint that I haven’t touched in years. I actually miss oil painting, but it’s no longer a feasible medium for professional work where the client may ask me to make changes which couldn’t really be made to a finished oil painting without repainting the entire thing. I was blessed to transition to digital tools when I did because I’d never acquire work today without that skill.
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I experimented with coffee painting in senior high. Haven’t since then. I have used tea. 🙂 it’s very thin, though.
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“I don’t like tea; it gives me a headache.” – Pete Puma
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