Monday, May 05, 2014

Jet Pens Review Part 1

Recently our friends at Jet Pens sent us a few fun samples for us to try and review! I felt like a kid in a candy store when I opened the package! 
One of the wonderful things about our little surprise package was that it came with 4 colorful brush pens. I tend to be conservative when I sketch and I'm not one for using colors, but I always admire the sketchbooks, like Meg Hunt's, that are pretty and colorful! This was a great opportunity to try using color myself 


They included the following four colorful Brush Pens
4) Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush Pen - Persian Blue 






The Fudebiyori Brushes are felt tipped, medium in terms of firm-ness, and very inexpensive! They're actually quite fun for sketching even though I'm not the most fond of felt tips. 
I liked the use them for the underlay, using the light colors got me comfortable with using colors without committing too much. 
The Clean Color Brushes are real brush tips, I think they are synthetic because their price on Jet Pens is also quite inexpensive! (Our pentels we buy always are around 8-12 dollars, so these being 3.30 seem like a steal!) I really enjoyed drawing with this pen, you can get a really really beautiful fine line, the tips are springy and resilient which is something I didn't expect from such an inexpensive brush. I also like that you can get a drier stroke with these. I might invest in the whole set! 
As with any new medium, I had to play around a bit before I got comfortable. While playing with the pens I realized that if you go back over the red with the yellow, it blends it to create a soft look. I didn't love the look, but it was fun to try. I tried to keep the colors mostly analogous but I think I'll try something more daring with them soon. 

This sketch was done based on the cover of the Fashionable Selby book. I found it in Anthropologie last weekend and I had to grab it, it's such a beautiful book describing creative people's lives and studios! I love taking a peek at studios and this is a fantastic resource. 
Try some of these brushes, they're fun and who knows, maybe they'll get you thinking about your sketchbook differently! We'll have more reviews of the grey and black pens next week!