How many of you guys draw?
Here’s the thing- I learned to draw with a brush years ago, and it’s served me very well for a lot of reasons. And now Kolinsky Sable brushes are very hard to get. They’re the best brushes for inking with. Seriously, they’re great. Raphael brushes, Isabey, or Windsor-Newton Series 7s. Nice lines.
But like I said, they’re hard to get these days.
So, needing new brushes, you try out what’s available. Especially if your friends recommend them.
I think I’ve mentioned here before that I got a nice brush pen with ink cartridges that I liked quite a bit. Twenty bucks for the pen, and maybe 11 bucks for a pack of refill cartridges. It took some getting used to, but it seemed to be a good thing. Plus, without the ink bottles, and the little pads of paper for pointing my brush, and the careful cleanup of Kolinsky Sable brushes, the nifty little Pentel brush pen seemed so convenient. And it IS convenient.
But I got out the ol’ Kolinsky Sable brush again, cleaned it carefully just in case, cracked open a new bottle of Higgens Black Magic ink and drew the latest couple of cartoons.
And I realize that as nice and convenient and seemingly as slick as that Pentel brush pen is, the control and the line and the feel and the final product that comes off a good brush with good ink is far superior.
Honestly, for the past few months, I’ve been kicking myself and wondering why my backgrounds had gotten so… dull. I thought I was losing my touch, or my eyesight, or something.
But it was the brush. Using the sable brush again, I dived at the backgrounds and enjoyed the lines and appreciated the feel of the whole thing much, much better.
I think the last time I mentioned that brush pen, someone commented that they hadn’t noticed the change in the art. And that’s good news. But I think, unless something goes pretty squiffy, I’ll be happier drawing with my stupidly expensive, hard-to-get brushes.
And so, if any of you guys draw… there’s some mindless cartoonist trivia for you.
For everyone else… Hey, look! it’s a cartoon about eating a bug! Hahahahahahaha!
