Faber Castell White Pitt Artist Pens Review

 

I've had the Faber Castell Pitt artist pens, black and white, for a few months now and they're a product I've used a lot on my pen and ink drawings on toned paper. The set comes as a pack of four, with a brush nib, a 1,5mm bullet nib, and a calligraphy nib in the white ink, and a 0.3mm Pitt black artist fineliner.

I use the pens on toned Clairfontaine Paint'On paper to do nature studies in pen and ink. The hare above shows how much more form and dimension you can add to works on toned paper by using the white to subtly highlight areas. It gives a classic look to your work.

Like all Faber Castell artist products the pens have the highest quality ink, which is permanent pigment ink with high lightfastness. I was surprised what good covering power the white pens have. With felt/fiber tipped pens if you overwork certain papers with them they can cause piling of the paper surface. This does happen on the Paint'On but the high covering power made it less of an issue. 

The Guinea Fowl portrait at the beginning of the article, a portrait of my own notorious Mr G, was done in Faber Castell Pitt brush markers and all the white bits were done with the Pitt white pens. They make an excellent addition to any of the brush marker sets, white pens like this with Indian ink are surprisingly hard to get.

I did see an Amazon review saying the ink in the white brush marker is weak and doesn't cover well. I also found this with mine, however it's because the marker hasn't been used. You do need to work the pen a fair bit to get the ink flowing with the correct opacity. To start with I used the brush pen for more subtle highlights, such as on the raven above, and used the bullet nib where I wanted stronger highlights. The chisel nib I use where I need to cover larger areas.

I used the chisel nib to cover the large areas of white on this magpie drawing, so don't be put off by the fact it's called a calligraphy nib.

I've done a lot of drawings with this pen set and it's still going strong. I love the effects that it gives when drawing on toned paper and it's definitely something I would repurchase. I especially love using them on the Clairfontaine Paint'On papers in natural, vert et gris, denim, and gris. The paper doesn't hold up to wet techniques but is a beautiful surface for pen and ink, and it has a good weight to it at 250gsm.

Materials used -

Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens white

Sakura Pigma Micron Fineliners 

Clairefontaine Paint'On vert et gris

Clairefontaine Paint'On denim

Clairefontaine Paint'On Gris

Clairefontaine Paint'On natural