Testing the Pitt Brush Pens

On the edge doodle

For Christmas I got a lot of nice black pens that I’ve been drawing with in the margins of my diary. I also bought myself/got a Manga Set of gray toned drawing pens (along with glue sticks and other pens).

For Christmas 2010

The pen set has the same pens that I see Tammy mentioning all the time on her blog, and recommending on her great list of materials for art journalers! They are called Pitt Artist Pens (by Faber-Castell) and I love them!

Smilla wants to know: where did the time go
Shading with the gray pen, even around the speech bubble!

The S(mall) is black and great for drawing with. The M(edium) and the B(ig/bold/brushy) is awesome for colouring big surfaces. The different grays are just yummy and works great together when shading! The S is a normal drawing pen but the M and B looks like a brush with a narrow tip that when you lean it to the side becomes wider. Love it!

Stocking up on stuff

So last week I had to get another pack of Pitt pens (along with two Peanut Moleskine notebooks on sale; I’m stocking up!). This one is called Manga Sh?jo Set (I looked it up and sh?jo means girl in Japanese) and it has these 6 light but very useful colours;

Six new colours of
The scarlet red is really very orange, and I need a pink shade too, but otherwise I like these hues a lot.

I have been drawing with cheaper pens before so this experience is new and I am really digging it. I love when art material is free or dirt cheap and still great, but when it comes to pens it can really be worth the money to get good quality stuff! The pens are fade-resistant, waterproof, acid-free and has waterbased ink. The ink runs smoothly but not to wet and leaves very little “seams”. I would loooove to get all 50 colours, but for now these will be fun to play with, especially in my little diary drawings!

Testing the pitt pens
Evidence page of new pens: testing them out, writing out their name, exploring the posiblities….

Just remember not to put pitt pens in a bucket, they should be stored horizontally so they don’t dry out!

Date and doodle in the diary
A caf? doodle in the corner of my diary, done while waiting for a meeting.

I’ve been to two exhibitions this year, one about space (inspired by NASA) and also the yearly art spring exhibition, but all I got at both were some boring recipes and nothing nice looking like tickets or cool ephemera to glue into my diary! So instead as my evidence pages I’ll show you a poster I’ve designed for a craft week of Valentine, and also how the test-page of my new Pitt Brush Pens look! Here’s the a small portion of the poster that I glued into my diary (except for the pacman, it’s a sticker):

Poster for Valentine

The washi tape evidence page I created last summer inspired Robin to try it out too, which I think is great. Thanks Robin! She writes in her post Break out the good stuff;

    When you have a few hours to kill (!), cyber-pop over to Sweden to see iHanna. Her blog is one giant inspiration for anyone who even thinks about accomplishing something creative.

This post is my contribution to this months crusade no 48 about Evidence pages! The crusade is called Been there done that, so by showing you materials I am cheating a bit (maybe that will be a later crusade) but I so wanted to do this crusade too.


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22 Responses

  1. Oh, I don’t think it’s cheating, shopping is as much of an adventure as any other :)

    I love those bright coloured Pitt pens!

    I just have the black set and the sepia set, I love them to bits.

    Fab doodles.

  2. hanna – terrific evidence page! great way to try out the pens and have a record of the effect and colors on the page. love to see your doodle page too – making the most of free time! thanks for the reminder to store pens laying horizontal. and thanks for sharing your *evidence* with the team!

  3. Thanks for taking the time to comment! Sarah, oh no! Now I absolutely need a set of sepia too… hehe, I think this will be an ongoing obsession to get all the colours! And yes, shopping is an adventure too, I agree. It’s my favorite Artist Date with myself!

    Michelle, thanks for a great crusade!

  4. even your doodles are exquisite! i’ve been poking around on your blog and i love your work. i also love how it covers so many mediums. super inspirational. :)

  5. I love my pitt pens!!! I didn’t know they were supposed to be stored horizontally–I had always been told to store pens flat.

  6. I love Pitt Pens! Love, love, love them! I would marry them, if I didn’t already have a great Lovin’ Man of my own! Also loving your painting in the previous post. Great work!

  7. I don’t want to seduce you into buying even more art supplies, but have you tried the pitt big brush markers? They are to die for! I use them a lot in my mixed media works, especially the black one for lettering. They will write over anything and are waterproof. Just thought I’d mention them ;-)

  8. Such great toys, Hanna ! I love Pitt pens too. I use them all the time but I have to be patient when I use them in my journal as they can get easily ruined if your acrylic paint is still damp in any way when you write over it !
    Love those colored ones…something to add to the wish list !
    Happy Creating !

  9. I love Pitt pens!

    One thing you can do with them to create even more colors is to mix them together. I DO wish they had a more true-to-fire-engine red, though. I find that I get a better, darker red by mixing it with maroons or blues. I wish they had a blender pen. :-) Dick Blick has a nice set with many colors– I got a 48 color set and I still use it frequently. I made this picture using both Pitt pens and sharpies: http://agnespterry.deviantart.com/art/Spider-Queen-175212830?q=gallery%3Aagnespterry%2F493700&qo=5.

  10. oooooh, those look great! I need a set of really good black pens. Mine seem to “run out” or at least appear that way, very quickly! Maybe I should store them horizontally?!

  11. Thank you for share this information and your experience about pitt pen. Love the gray shade and the moleskine journal you stock-up.

  12. Oh I love you doodling the look of those pens Hanna. I may have to order a set. The greyscale ones look really good for shading and I like that they are waterproof. Thanks for sharing
    Lee:)

  13. Great you show us all of those fantastic pens. I have a set of black Pigma Micron fineliners. They are great to draw with, but I think you don’t need all the 6 sizes. They ran from 0,2 to 0,5 mm, that’s a bit much. I am going to have a look at those Pitt pens. Thanks for sharing your pages with lovely doodles.

  14. Oh-oh-oh! Great choice of pens! :-) I’ve been drawing with the same ones and -adore- them.
    This is so funny, I saw the Charlie Brown moleskin books today and really wanted them. I’ll probably wait for them to in special, as well. :-p
    Very inspiring pictures and work, once again! :-)

  15. “Been there, bought that!” Hilarious girl. This is evidence of your awesome stash and love for quality tools. Good for you, love it!! xxx tj

  16. i love pitt pens but had no idea they were to be stored horizontally! so much for reading the directions! ;-) your post makes me want to start some doodling….

  17. This was a great trip through PittPens. They are my favorite go-to pens for sketching and coloring. I love the Black SF (super-fine) and the brushes. While the sepia hold my heart, I love the shades of gray, too. I love the work you have created here with the bright colors. I haven’t thought of doing a border of flowers around a page, so thanks for the inspiration!

  18. HEJ! ? vad fint du har! Fina saker! Jag vill l?nka fr?n mitt kafferep till dig!
    Hoppas du har en fin dag!

  19. Hanna, I do have a love affair with Pitt Pens, just a note that the fine, super fine, etc. come in a limited number of colors (including sepia) and all of the colors come in brush tip. As for a better brush tip red, Sakura makes a vivid red in brush tip. I learned a secret about the brush tips – when they dry out, pull the tip out gently with your fingers or a tweezer, flip it around, and push back in!!! Voila, new marker!!! I love the idea of shading with grays, honestly I didn’t know what to do with the grays, silly me.

  20. Hanna, are you kidding? This is NOT cheating! This is the evidence I needed at this very moment, even though (I’m really late seeing it)!! I am so in love with pens right now that I want to take the rest of the day off work to zip out and get me some of these pens. Your journal work is so great. I love your drawing of the orange haired girl!

    Nice to be catching up with you again. Hope all is going great with you. You truly are an inspiration to me.
    xo
    Chris