Irodori Gambai Japanese watercolors and Kuretake pen

Irodori Gambai Tambi set, six colors plus water brush and Kuretake manga pen

This set was on sale at Blick in the Winter seasonal catalog. Still is and it sold out a couple of times, got back ordered. I can see why. It's compact and interesting, contains everything I'd need to do good color illustration including an interesting pen.

The Kuretake Mangaka Flexible pen is water soluble, not waterproof. It's not a brush tip pen like the Pentel Brush Pen that I dearly love, but it has a thick-thin line and a sturdy nib that's pressure sensitive. The line flicks well and does thin on lightening up. I was pleasantly surprised to have a pen with a different effect in my lineup between the Pentel brush pen and my assorted Pigma Microns, one that's expressive without demanding absolute precision.

The colors are well chosen in the small set, though the full range has 36 or more all with interesting names. They're not as strong as the Daniel Smiths that I'm used to, but they are pan colors and sufficient pickup gives me good dark color, especially with the Dark Blue. 

Naturally I did a test painting using a reference from coldpress on WetCanvas, for a challenge.

Cherry Blossoms, branch with white flowers on pink and blue haze

This came out well. I'd originally penciled it to test the Pebeo Masking Marker but there's been some problems with that, I may have to wait to get it until a warmer season. If it's frozen along the way it damages the fluid and the pen's dead before it arrives. That was what happened to last week's review - the product didn't work at all but Blick made good. So I'll order later in spring and see what happens, just get a customer refund on it - but beware, don't order that product during the winter! You don't know how far it'll travel or how cold the delivery truck gets along the way. It would be worth getting it anyway if it works well - but just keeping it indoors in the warm studio instead of taking it out on bad cold days.

So I reserved white manually instead and that worked well. The colors in the little set are Brown, Dark Blue, Green, Gold, Dark Pink and Lemon Yellow - an excellent palette that can mix anything else I want or work together in glazes for optical mixing. I did some of both and some mixing on the paper. I used the pen to darken the branch but didn't outline the flowers as I preferred them without.

These colors layer well although they do mix with what's under them. They are a touch more opaque, they're not exactly like Western watercolors but still very good. Not quite in a league with Daniel Smith but they have their own particular charm and would be very good for Asian styles of painting like sumi-e with color.

The water brush is a little different. Water isn't automatically delivered, it takes squeezing to renew it so the brush dries up to allow dry brush effects pretty easily. I liked that as a variation. Each brush handles differently and this one has a good point, it just takes a little more work to use as I have to remember to squeeze. However that gives much more control of flow!

Overall, the set is a good value and it was surprisingly small and handy. I put a Tikky mechanical pencil next to it for scale, it's only about 5/8" thick in its green silk box and quite sturdy. I've had those boxes before with sumi-e supplies and they stand up well to travel. I could pocket it as long as I had reasonably large pockets, suitable for tossing in a paperback or a post card sketchbook. So this is a go-along set too. 

I may update this later with some example painting on rice paper, since I've got some. But so far on regular sized paper it performed well and the colors are lovely.

Pentel Arts Color Brush Set with Aquash water brush

Product photo Pentel Arts Color Brush Set in box

I tossed this into my last Blick order on a whim. I had meant to try the Pentel Aquash water brush and see how it stands up to Niji, Sakura and other favorites. It's included in this sketch pens set - so I thought, well, let's see how convenience works. A black, sepia and gray sketch brush prefilled would be handy for sketching.

Wow. I didn't realize how good the Pentel Arts brush would be or how great a point it'd have. The color pens come with cartridges, when they're used up you can get black refills. The gray and sepia only come in sets. Still the set was moderately priced at under $18 at Blick, so it's not that bad for a water brush and three pens. Comparable to other water brushes, certainly.

The color pens unscrew clockwise and screw back on counter-clockwise. This was the case with some water brushes I've had in the past. The Aquash works in the other direction. Get used to it, these things aren't going to be standard in screwing and unscrewing. It's fairly easy to tell if you get it wrong. They come with a little plastic protective collar to keep the cartridge from fully engaging till you unpack it and remove that, which probably keeps the points from getting gunked up before you even use it. I liked that.

The brushes on the color pens are actual brushes with hairs, like a proper water brush. They aren't fiber tip brush tips like the Pitt Pen Big Brush or the Tombow Dual Tip brush tips. They hold a lovely fine point. I got wonderful expressive details with them and did a little lettering on another practice sheet that came out well. 

But their real joy came in the painting!

Painting done with product: shaggy dark goat on a hollow log in a dramatic pose as if it just knocked another goat down.

I had a good photo reference and thought, let's see how these do for illustration. Wow wow wow. Beautiful points. Beautiful expressive strokes. They are very juicy. Before I added the black strokes I had some interesting effects when the gray puddled and lightened in some areas. It handles like watercolor or thin ink, and the pens are good and juicy. I got dry-brush effects sometimes though.

When the brush starts giving dry brush effects, a squeeze on the handle will give more ink. They handle a lot like other water brushes that way. Except that three of these are loaded with color and it's good color. The gray is light enough to stand a second layer to deepen it for another tone, without going to black. So light-dark effects either wet in wet or wet over dry are easy once I got the feel for it.

A black cat painting shows how I got the gray to handle values:

Graveyard Watch, black cat on light tombstone against dark forest

The highlight on the cat's belly was achieved with a second layer on the cat's body, wet over damp. It wasn't completely dry so came up slightly soft edged, while I got deeper darks next to the stark blacks that I put in with the Pentel Pocket Brush pen. The combination of waterproof Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and Pentel Arts Color Brush watersoluble brushes gave me great flexibility in this piece. I got the deepest darks in first and washed over them confidently without breaking any crisp edges, then toned with the gray Pentel Arts Color Brush.

It's very delicate and the ink dries semi-washable. It's not fully dissolved when I run water over it - when it's dried, as the lines were in the brown part of the sawn hollow log, running water over them created only a very light wash. This can be really handy for sketching. Do loose strokes very close together and it will start acting like a wash, color flowing in the direction the paper's slanted. 

They are extremely expressive. How they feel in the hand is a delight. They invite expressive strokes and experimental techniques. I rate these pens five star. They don't have the flat effect that the Tombow ones do, because the color does run lighter or darker depending on moisture. This makes them much more like sumi-e painting (Japanese ink painting) and allows for some gorgeous effects. 

I loosened up using them, but still got as much detail as I wanted in tight areas like the animal's eye or the contour of the ear. 

The brush on the Aquash water brush is excellent, with good flow and a lovely point. I'm sure this will become one of my favorites. Slightly sharper point than the Niji and I like the way the ginger-jar handle shape keeps it from rolling off the desk. It's compact and handy. The one included is a size Medium but they also come in large, small and I think there's also a flat one. Similar to other water brush products in pricing, the handle doesn't have the flow regulator in it so filling is very fast and easy - the regulator's up in the tip.

Urban sketchers should really love these. Throw them into your kit and see what comes out in your journal!