Tag: Pentel Color Brush

Posted on

Pentel Color Brushes + Bister inks

Pentel Color Brushes are the bomb! And so are Bister inks. It was only a matter of time before I would combine them.

I’m continuing to enjoy Elizabeth McKee’s brush lettering class, so much so that my current book edition (going out the door tomorrow) is brush lettered. I’ve fiddled around with the Pentel Color Brush (PCB) a lot — emptying them, dipping them in watercolors and other inks, even using them as-is. The other day I emptied a nearly spent extra-fine PCB and refilled it with Bister inks. I have also been experimenting with making videos. So … here’s a video of me refilling a PCB with Bister inks. It turns out that Pentel Color Brushes and Bister inks go together well. I strained my ink through cheesecloth to keep out the undissolved Bister crystals.

Filling a Pentel Color Brush with Bister Inks

I show the PCB already taken apart. Taking apart a PCB is a simple operation. Grasp that black ring at the top of the black barrel with a needle-nose pliers and pull. The central tube will come out pretty easily. Then rinse out (or wash) both the barrel and the central tube. That’s it!

My favorite store for Pentel Color Brushes is JetPens. I’ve used them a lot over the years, especially when I was doing daily alphabets.

Posted on

Workshop with Mike Gold

I enjoyed this past weekend’s workshop hosted by Chicago Calligraphy Collective. Taught by Mike Gold, the workshop was entitled “Over and Over”. All weekend we focused on taking one text and lettering it over and over, using different approaches.

  • Mike Gold workshop: one of the initial layouts
    One of several initial layouts. Pentel Color Brushes on Strathmore 80# Drawing.
  • Mike Gold workshop: : handwriting + weight in metallic bronze
    Weighted handwriting. Fine-Tec metallic watercolor and Winsor & Newton Series 7 brush.
  • Mike Gold workshop: handwriting + weight on black
    Handwriting + weight on Strathmore Artagain black.
  • Mike Gold workshop: the walking line
    Walking a line. Ball-nib pen (like Speedball Series B) and Quink ink.
  • Mike Gold workshop: the walking line and color
    The walking line with walnut ink on watercolor background.
  • Mike Gold workshop: structure and 2nd element
    Structure and lettering. Watercolors and walnut ink, brush and 1/2mm Brause nib.
  • Mike Gold workshop: structure and two elements
    Two elements. Red Pentel Color Brush, ruling writer, walnut ink, water-soluble colored pencil.

My quotation for the workshop was this: “Stare, pray, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.” – Walker Evans. (But if an exercise didn’t lend itself to the quotation, I chose something else.)

In this workshop with Mike Gold, it was instructive to see the work of my fellow workshop students, a gathering of accomplished calligraphers. The work was so widely varied! You can see some of this work on instagram here. The Chicago Calligraphy Collective has really got it going on, especially as an online presence for those of us members who are not local.

Mike Gold is teaching this class to other guilds via Zoom. For instance, the Columbus guild is hosting this workshop October 24 & 25. If you’re interested, sign up!

Posted on

Brush lettering weathergrams during a glorious autumn

Pentel Color Brushes and Artist Brush Sign Pens on Kraft paper. Stamps added before and/or after.

I am so enjoying a brush lettering class with Elizabeth McKee. She was my very first serious calligraphy teacher, way back in 1988-1989. The homework assignments have included making weathergrams, and this has been perfectly consonant with what I want to do. These past few weeks here in Montana, our dog Zeke and I have simply wallowed in the beautiful autumn. And we’ve enjoyed long walks among the brilliant trees and blessedly clean air and gorgeous sunlight.

Given all this, it’s no wonder that I can’t seem to stop making these weathergrams! I’m addicted to that slightly rough drag of the brush on Kraft paper, the daylight within the strokes as the ink feathers on the paper. And I have been hanging them around the walking trails in Bozeman. (I’m not sure whether to replace the ones that have disappeared, or find another place to put them. If people are taking them as souvenirs, that’s okay. But perhaps they’re simply taking out the trash. Or maybe the deer like them. How to tell?)

Weathergrams were developed by Lloyd J. Reynolds, a calligrapher who had a profound influence in the western US in the 70s and 80s. The form is a sort of Western melange of Japanese tanzaku, haiku, wabi sabi, and more. Weathergrams are not sold but given as gifts or hung from trees and allowed to weather. If you want to know about weathergrams, read Reynolds’ booklet on the subject. And that booklet has been digitized here by The Haiku Digital Foundation Library.

Read more about Lloyd Reynolds at the website of Reed College, where he was a professor for 40 years.