Review: Derwent Graphik Line Painter Colored Pens (Palette No. 2)

These are the 5-pack Graphik Line Painter Colored Pens (Palette No. 2) by Derwent. Apparently, there are a range of 4 palettes within Derwent's Line Painter pens series (Palettes No. 1 to No. 4) - and each palette contain 5 different colors.

The pens come packed within a colorful wallet designed by artist Carne Griffiths.

The top of each pen-cap is affixed with a colored piece that reflects the color of the pen, and there is a circular indent in the middle.

Each of these colored pieces are detachable from the pen cap. (Fortunately, the nibs within remain protected by the pen cap's interior plastic body)

The pen caps have clips and are translucent.

You may find the name of each color on the body of the particular pen - as you can see from the pictures above, they are:

• 'Envy' for the green color ( #13 );
• 'Clockwork' for the orange color ( #02 );
• 'Bricklane' for the brick color ( #15 );
• 'Brilliant' for the darker blue color ( #08 ); and
• 'High' for the lighter blue color ( #09 ).

The plastic body of each pen is also translucent, which allows you to see the amount of ink within. (When left unused for a while, you may see milky bubbles within)

You may also find on the body of each pen, some short instructions on how to use the pens - and as you can see from the picture above, you will have to shake well before depressing the nib for 2 seconds and wait.

When you depress the nib, make sure that you press the retractable nib all the way down against the paper till you don't see the nib anymore (like in the picture above).

Then release - the ink will start flowing thereafter.

However, when pressing down the nib, do not press too hard. This may cause ink to spill out. (I applied a tad too much force when pressing down the nib of the brick-colored pen, and ended up with a sizeable blot of brown ink on the paper)

These pens come with Japan nibs of size 0.5mm.

Before depressing the nibs to allow ink to flow out, each new nib is white in color.

Each new nib will become colored from the ink within, after being depressed. (Notably, the nibs are rather juicy with ink - ink flow is good!)

The water-based pigment ink is great to color with, but however do note that the ink takes a while to dry. (If you touch the ink before it dries, it may smudge)

Below are some examples of colorings painted with the pens:

Picture 1: Painted with all 5 colors in Palette No.2

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Picture 6

Notice the little smudge at the bottom right end of the 'N' in Picture 1? That was the result of me accidentally touching that part of the paper when the ink hasn't completely dried.

The water-based pigment ink is opaque - if you let the ink of color X dry out completely (i emphasize DRY) and then paint color Y over it, color Y will cover over color X as you can see from Pictures No. 2 to 5 above (Picture No. 5 being the most obvious example). This quality is great for those seeking to use these pens to draw/paint on colored paper.

Additionally, as you may see from Picture No. 6, the inks retain their colors while drawn over colored paper.

Notably, the water-based pigment ink is waterproof (I tried dipping some water over a coloring painted with two different inks to see if the inks which have dried, do dissolve and mix in the presence of water. And it turned out that they don't.)

You can use watercolour over the ink, and when dried, ink over the watercolour. Covering strength of the opaque inks is good and can block any colours beneath.

Picture No. 7

However, out of curiosity, I experimented with blending the colors when the ink was still wet (it must be wet in order to blend! Otherwise the ink will just be opaque as mentioned above).
Voila! They blended pretty nicely, as you can see from Picture No. 7 above (which is the result of the orange and light blue colors being blended).

Picture No. 8

As you may see from Picture No. 8 above, the texture of the painting blended with two different inks, is rather rough (in contrast to the smooth surface of a single colored painting).

I will suggest buying a Palette to try out first (and see if you like it) before buying the entire set (Palettes No.1 to 4) as the pens are a little pricey.

Availability

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