India ink was my preferred medium when I started doing traditional artwork more seriously, previously I would use whatever was at hand, but once I put my work for sale, I feel the responsibility to make it last, archival whenever possible, and thus I started to be more careful with the mediums I use.
In 2019 I had my first group show participation, I was then using dip pens, and I truly like them and the rendering they produce, but it gets very tedious to constantly keep dipping the pen in ink, and here in LA, most of the year is hot, and it dries the ink on the nib, the cleaning and filling consumes lots of time that sometimes I don’t have, and it kills the mood after a while.
I was curious about the technical pens, but they are very expensive, thus I started looking for them on eBay, I’ve been very fortunate to have found a few sets and those pens completely changed my game in the artwork making.They come with their own challenges but in comparison with the dip pen, they are much more reliable. These are my observations on them.
The Rotring Isographs were my first try, I found a couple of “open box” sets and got some of their ink trough retail. (ink is cheap in comparison) These are great, but there is only one problem, except for very specific type of paper, like high quality Bristol, the lines are rather tick even on the smallest size they produce which is the 0.10.
The Koh-I-Noor were my second brand I tried, here in the States, they are a little more expensive than the Rotring, retail they sell for around 40-50 dollars per pen! They do produce the thinner lines out there, comparable to expensive disposable fine liners such as the Microns. But that came at a higher price, every single of my four 0.13 & 0.18 I had, died (braked) internally due to the delicate mechanism. And although I didn’t buy them at full retail price, for a starving artist like me, it was a huge loss, the reason is simple but difficult to spot and understand at first. If a tiny bit of ink dries in the nib, the piston still pushes the hair like needle through and bends it, and the worst part is that you will never know (as the piston moves by simple grabbing the pen).
I also notice that some pens on the Rotring and all of the Koh-I-Noor have the needle sticking out of the nib, specially on the bigger sizes, it makes it difficult to draw quick ending lines, but in all fairness, these pens where not meant for art.
I got also some Alvin pens at some point, they were super cheap but cheaply made, they did work for a bit before breaking, still they were cheaper than using Microns, but the company closed, and they are no longer available, I got them for about 4 dollars a piece.
This month I was very lucky to find a new open box set of the Steadtler Marsmatic, they were higher sizes than the ones I preferred, but they were dirt cheap, they are really good too, probably the most sturdy out of them all, the line width is very good, they might become my favorites. Need to find some smaller sizes to fully test them.
I also have tried many technical inks, and the best black ink by far is the Rotring, is the most resilient and opaque of them all, will dry super fast and is 100% water proof once dried. This makes it very good to my mixed mediums approach as the acrylic I use will not pick the pigment from it, also works very well on top of acrylic, gesso, and varnish. This is because I’m using them on wood panels and canvas, on paper most inks perform very well.
If you got any questions or comments about this tec pens, please let me know! I will be more than happy to share my experience on them. For now I will keep (as I always do) an eye for more finds, until one of these companies sponsor my artwork, I have to hunt for those eBay deals!