If you are tired of hearing me swoon about my wonderful library job and babble on about different types of pens, you might want to just skip this post.

Fair warning.

As part of our summer programming at the public library, I have been allowed to run a four part drawing seminar in conjunction with the Teen Program. Each week (with the exception of the one my Dad guest-lectured on) I am covering different core drawing concepts, such as Structures Being Composed of Shapes or the ever thrilling One and Two Point Perspective. It’s a great opportunity to encourage young artists, and it’s a good way for them to network and meet other teens enthusiatic about drawing.

To add a little incentive I have been offering door prizes, and a good deal of these are coming from my favorite pen site, Jetpens. The good folks at Jetpens were kind enough to send me a pack of products to review on the blog, and then give out to the kids each week. So, without further rambling, here is the first installment of my pen reviews.

Staedtler Pigment Liner Marker Pen 0.1 mm

This is a great fine-line sketching pen. It lays a very even line, with no noticable bleed or smudging on heavy paper. It’s the type of pen that makes me want to do a massive hatching and cross hatching piece, and draw in every little rivet and rivulet as I go. The ink is just a shade lighter than absolute black, but this is good for allowing you to stack lines for depth. The pen body itself is a little slender, so if you’re someone with a really fierce pen grip style, you might get some finger cramps, but I had no real issues. I also enjoyed the sleek look of the pen, and the matte gray body prevents any slickness in the hand.

All around, I highly recommend this pen, and would love to play around with using different widths of this.

Pilot V-Pen Disposable Fountain Pen

I was excited to get this one to review, as I’ve been on a big fountain pen kick lately (even though I might not know as much as I should). I’ve not yet gotten my “problem” upgraded to the $50 pens, instead sticking with many along the line of disposables. This Pilot V-Pen is a pretty standard example of such. It has a nice feel in the hand, not too bulky or too skinny. The solid plastic body and cap does give it a slightly cheap appearance, but that’s sort of the point, so no complaints. Speaking of points (ba-dun-chhh) the nib seems to be of nice quality. When I got done spinning the thing in my hands and finally started dropping lines, it let out a very consistent one, if a little heavy for my tastes. The ink is a good darkness, unless I was just racing the pen across the page it left a pretty heavily opaque black line. I did have a little fuzzy bleeding when using this on thick drawing paper, which is not a problem I normally have with my pens. This leads me to believe it must have a pretty heavy ink flow, which could be good or bad, depending on your intentions.

Overall, while I feel this is a perfectly serviceable writing instrument, I don’t think I would recommend the V-Pen for drawing purposes. The Platinum Preppy’s do the job much better, with more variety in pen size, and the option to refill with cartridges.

Zebra Disposable Brush Pen -Super Fine-

This pen is an old friend of mine, and one I am excited to extol the virtues of. Several years ago I went on an Art Quest to find the best brush pen or pens for my needs, and this is one of the few that I brought back from the pen-filled wilds. I have a romantic vision of my interaction with such pens, where I would use a splendidly long-brushed delicate pen to whorl and swirl my way across the page, leaving delightfully smooth ever-changing curves in my wake. The reality is that when I cram such an instrument into my ham-fisted paws all I can accomplish is a jagged and hideous ink mess.

Not so with this Zebra Pen! The firmer tip helps prevent my indelicate lines from smushing and shrinking as I work across the page. It lets me keep a consistent width for the bulk of the stroke, but it is still easy to put a light taper on the tips. And if I really want to bulk up a curve, a little intentional pressure will do just that. The pens come in a few different sizes, but I find the Super Fine to be good for my purposes, mainly comics and such at a fairly small scale. The ink has a nice rich darkness, looks great on it’s own and holds up well to light erasing. The body is a simple plastic one, as expected on a disposable pen, but the nice color and gold flecking help to keep it from looking cheap. The pen is just single use, with no intended refill mechanism. I have seen them disassembled with pliers to add ink, and this seemed to work well, but I don’t know how many times you would want to do so, since the nibs are only intended for a certain amount of use.

I heartily recommend the Zebra Brush Pen. Since finding it, whenever it comes time to replace, I usually just order 3, and make sure there is always one in my art box.