Review of the Kuretake No. 8 Fountain Hair Brush Pen

I love brush pens, and recently I purchased a Kuretake No. 8 Fountain Hair Brush Pen.  A friend gave me a beautiful handmade journal.  I'm not sure what the paper is other than thick like watercolor paper, but softer with less tooth.  It's probably handmade, and the moment I touched it, I knew it was made for the Kuretake.

I have mixed feelings about Kuretake's No. 8 Fountain Hair Brush pen.  It draws a beautiful line, and with the slightest of pressure you can vary the width.  The ink is not water-proof, a possible disaster for the klutz that is me, but it also means I can do some nice washes.  My real problem is with the length.  It's the longest pen I've ever had, especially if you cap the pen.   I don't, because it is so uncomfortable in my small hand, and I worry that I'll lose the cap.

Still.  You can do such beautiful things with this pen.  In many ways, it is more like a brush, and I've been experimenting with holding it in different ways, just as I would a brush. I suspect that with time, I will figure out how to use it comfortably.

The pen uses ink cartridges, which I like because they don't create a mess, but which I will have to purchase online.

The proof is in the pudding, they say.  I did two drawings in my new journal and I love them.  So my feelings about the Kuretake No. 8 Fountain Hair Brush Pen are mixed, but the love comes out on top.

After drawing the tangles, I went over the lines with a waterbrush to create washes with the ink.

Here I used Lyra Rembrandt color pencils to color in after I tangled.  The Kuretake works well with the pencils.  If you color over the ink, it takes on a tint of color while remaining dark, so you can play with the values.