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By way of explanation, I have a young (age 4) son with a developmental delay in his fine motor skills. He has a difficult time holding a pen and controlling his hand/wrist movements finely enough to create letters or pictures. His cognitive skills are normal, so it's frustrating for him when he tries to write a word or draw a picture and his images just don't turn out like his preschool classmates' pictures do. As a result, he's been avoiding using a pen, brush or marker at all. He'll sit next to me and dictate what he wants me to write or draw - which is an enjoyable thing to do together, but while it's certainly helping his spelling skills, it's not helping him develop his fine motor skills. I really want to encourage him to practice using a pen (or marker, brush etc.) while keeping it fun and rewarding. One thing I tried recently, with some success, was making a sketch with watercolor pencils, then giving him a water brush so he could trace my lines (or just paint the entire thing, if he chose!) and end up with an image he was proud of. Enough background...here's what I'm looking for! I'd like to try sketching with a permanent fountain pen ink, then adding some watercolor pencil so when my son paints with his water brush, some of the image will remain unchanged. For example, I might write some words for him in permanent ink with my fp, then add some watercolor pencil so when he's finished the words are clearly legible, but also surrounded by a colorful watercolor-painted design. My top priority is to find a black ink that will be unaffected when it's later painted over with water, but I'd certainly be interested in other colors, as well. Thanks so much for any help you can provide!! lunareclipse

**Moderators - feel free to move this thread to a more suitable place in the forums if needed!** This is actually my first ever post on FPN but I've been lurking a long time in the forums largely because I have always felt that I had more to learn than contribute regarding my knowledge of fountain pens. But anyways, this thread is intended to share my journey of exploring the world of painting with fountain brushpens and fountain pen inks. While I am definitely not an expert on them, I believe I may have some nuggets of info worth sharing especially since I have come across questions and enquiries on brushpens on FPN. WHY BRUSHPENS? Brushpens are great for painting and line variation. While a fountain pen with a flex nib is still unbeatable for characteristic writing in journals, notetaking etc., brushpens - due to their extreme line variability (which results in greater lack of control) - are great for paintings/drawings. Wet brushpens with good flow can in fact really emulate the look of an actual brush and ink. WHICH BRUSHPENS? The main brands for brushpens are Pentel, Akashiya, Kuretake and Platinum. I have tried many models across these 4 brands, and after figuring out which ones are more suitable to my personal needs, I am currently using the following two brushpen types: Platinum Brushpen: You can find these on Goulet Pens. They come in two types: natural hair brush, and synthetic fibre brush. The former is softer, more difficult to control, but gives finer lines and greater variation. The latter is the opposite. Pentel Aquash Brushpen: Uses synthetic fibre for its brush. Dirt cheap and commonly available, it takes non-fountain pen ink too. Given its price it really has formidable value. My only gripe with it and the reason why it has not completely replaced my Platinum brushpens is that ink flow can sometimes go berserk on these pens (quality control might be an issue) and lay down enormous amounts of ink. And oh yes, they are cheap looking and not as pretty looking as the Platinum ones, but that is probably not a huge issue. WHICH INKS? Brushpens are thirstier than nibbed pens and even the more viscous inks should flow nicely. As such, the flow of inks that we are so preoccupied with for nibbed pen usage is thus less of a concern here. Additionally, due to the style of my paintings (more on that below) I prefer to use primarily black, grey and red inks. My current inks of choice for these 3 colors are Noodler's Black, Pliot Iroshizuku Kiri-Same (sometimes DIamine Silver-Fox) and Diamine Poppy Red respectively. EXAMPLES OF WHAT ONE CAN DO I am very into oriental ink paintings. By that I mean paintings in the style of Chinese "水墨" or Japanese Sumi-e paintings, especially the landscape ones. However, I like to "spice up" these paintings with modern-day pop culture references, for instance, the inclusion of Totoro, Pokemon etc. in these paintings. Due to size constraints I have just attached one of my paintings to this post. It features a lightsaber-brandishing Yoda on a boat set in a Chinese landscape. It was done using Platinum and Pentel brush pens with the following 6 inks: Platinum Black, J.Herbin Vert Empire, Noodler's Lexington Grey, Noodler's Golden Brown, Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri-Same and Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-Gaki. If interested, you can view more of my paintings here in a recent article on BoredPanda: http://www.boredpanda.com/childhood-companions-in-chinese-ink-paintings/, or even follow me on Instagram at: https://instagram.com/samuelpecksw Meanwhile, feel free to share your experiences, drawings/paintings and questions on fountain brush pens here!

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