Should a Kuretake natural hair brush pen spring back to a perfect tip everytime?

[PotbellyPig]

I have several nylon Kuretake and other brand brush pens like Pentel and as expected they snap back to a perfect tip just about every time.  My Kuretake Itachi hair pen, even though I never used it before this, is sometimes a bit off when it snaps back.  There might be a very slight angle to the tip.  I read some reviews that state that they should snap back perfectly and others that say that since it is natural hair, don’t expect it.  Would the ink make a difference?  I used the cartridge that came with it, I think it may be the Kuratake pigment based one.  Would a different ink work better?  I read a lot of people use Platinum Carbon Black in their brush pens.  Thanks.

[dipper]

In the wide range of artist's paintbrushes, made with anything from goat, sable, and hog hairs, through to special polymers such as "Dalon", the man-made fibre brushes generally have more spring back, snapping back to a straight overall shape.

 

Natural hair brushes have a wide range of properties. Focusing on the soft fine-tip types, such as Sable, the hairs are less springy that man-made fibres. Such brushes will often lean or curve to one side during use, as you have found with your brush-pen.

 

One of the advantages of natural fibres though is that they can form a very fine narrow tip when wet. That is not due to their springyness. (Stored dry, after cleaning, my best sable watercolour brushes look rather bushy!) The fine tip is caused by the surface tension of watercolour or ink etc pulling the floppy tapered hairs into a tight cluster. The hairs need to be floppy for that effect to occur.

Cheaper "natural hair" brushes might try to form a point when wetted with water or ink, but then some of the stiffer hairs will persistently ping out sideways, spoiling the fine point.

 

Artificial fibre brushes are easier to use, but have less subtleties in the marks they can make. Also, after a bit of wear and tear they tend to loose what fine point they do have. Fibre technology continues to improve though. Some recent artificial fibre brushes are excellent.

 

The best soft natural hair brushes are more difficult to use well, due to their fine flexible tip that tends to flip and flop sideways, but therein is much of the skill needed and exquisite mark making possible in traditional brush calligraphy.

 

Different inks or paints can alter how reliably a hair brush will bring all the hairs together to a fine point. But ink will not make the fine point stiffer. There is another effect though that might make a difference......

 

If a brush is loaded with plenty of ink or watercolour the the hairs are able to slide over each other more easily and the brush will take a straighter overall form. After making a few marks on paper the brush head can become visibly narrower, and after a sideways bend from one stroke the brush will tend to stick in that form due to friction between the hairs that are now more tightly bunched together. With an artist's brush that effect signals it is time to dip the tip of the brush into ink to refill the brush head. With a brush-pen though you have a reservoir of ink constantly rewetting the brush head. So possibly a "wetter" ink may help the brush tip to partially straighten itself, in a Sable-hair brush-pen?

 

In my personal case I gave up buying Sable brushes years ago. Too expensive, doubts about unknown cruelty and other evils in the sourcing of such fibres, laziness in my brush technique, and better artificial fibres becoming available.

All my more recent purchases of brush pens and artist's brushes are man-made artificial fibres.

 

 

[PotbellyPig]

3 hours ago, dipper said:

In the wide range of artist's paintbrushes, made with anything from goat, sable, and hog hairs, through to special polymers such as "Dalon", the man-made fibre brushes generally have more spring back, snapping back to a straight overall shape.

 

Natural hair brushes have a wide range of properties. Focusing on the soft fine-tip types, such as Sable, the hairs are less springy that man-made fibres. Such brushes will often lean or curve to one side during use, as you have found with your brush-pen.

 

One of the advantages of natural fibres though is that they can form a very fine narrow tip when wet. That is not due to their springyness. (Stored dry, after cleaning, my best sable watercolour brushes look rather bushy!) The fine tip is caused by the surface tension of watercolour or ink etc pulling the floppy tapered hairs into a tight cluster. The hairs need to be floppy for that effect to occur.

Cheaper "natural hair" brushes might try to form a point when wetted with water or ink, but then some of the stiffer hairs will persistently ping out sideways, spoiling the fine point.

 

Artificial fibre brushes are easier to use, but have less subtleties in the marks they can make. Also, after a bit of wear and tear they tend to loose what fine point they do have. Fibre technology continues to improve though. Some recent artificial fibre brushes are excellent.

 

The best soft natural hair brushes are more difficult to use well, due to their fine flexible tip that tends to flip and flop sideways, but therein is much of the skill needed and exquisite mark making possible in traditional brush calligraphy.

 

Different inks or paints can alter how reliably a hair brush will bring all the hairs together to a fine point. But ink will not make the fine point stiffer. There is another effect though that might make a difference......

 

If a brush is loaded with plenty of ink or watercolour the the hairs are able to slide over each other more easily and the brush will take a straighter overall form. After making a few marks on paper the brush head can become visibly narrower, and after a sideways bend from one stroke the brush will tend to stick in that form due to friction between the hairs that are now more tightly bunched together. With an artist's brush that effect signals it is time to dip the tip of the brush into ink to refill the brush head. With a brush-pen though you have a reservoir of ink constantly rewetting the brush head. So possibly a "wetter" ink may help the brush tip to partially straighten itself, in a Sable-hair brush-pen?

 

In my personal case I gave up buying Sable brushes years ago. Too expensive, doubts about unknown cruelty and other evils in the sourcing of such fibres, laziness in my brush technique, and better artificial fibres becoming available.

All my more recent purchases of brush pens and artist's brushes are man-made artificial fibres.

 

 

Thank you for explaining it.  I guess I can’t expect the sable to be a snappy as the nylon bristles.  I thought maybe I was doing something wrong.  It is like you said, it does come to a nice tip, but sometimes when it bends back, it doesn’t go all the way and is at a slight angle.  Since I am a beginner with brush pens, I prefer it to snap back upright.

[txomsy]

Yeah, I agree, sable brushes are difficult to master for a beginner. They require an ever more so delicate touch and a very steady hand to master.

 

My experience with the three Kuretake brush pens I own is similar to that of @dipper, though I prefer natural hair instead.

 

You can get the thinnest strokes, but only with a very light and consistent hand, and that takes time to get used to. Using them slowly and carefully may help learn the use, but it demands patience and consistence. In the end, as many other human endeavors it is a matter of practice.

 

Much like, when using a flexible pen for calligraphy it may help to start with a dip pen, mastering the brush may benefit from using a dip brush before moving to a sable brush fountain pen. Methinks once the dip brush is mastered, moving to any brush FP should be easy.

 

Starting with artificial "hairs" in a brush FP, as a first step is also a good beginner choice, but the behavior of artificial and natural hair is different, so once the artificial hair FP is mastered, one will still need to refine one's skills to adapt them to the different touch required by natural hair.

[PotbellyPig]

2 hours ago, txomsy said:

Yeah, I agree, sable brushes are difficult to master for a beginner. They require an ever more so delicate touch and a very steady hand to master.

 

My experience with the three Kuretake brush pens I own is similar to that of @dipper, though I prefer natural hair instead.

 

You can get the thinnest strokes, but only with a very light and consistent hand, and that takes time to get used to. Using them slowly and carefully may help learn the use, but it demands patience and consistence. In the end, as many other human endeavors it is a matter of practice.

 

Much like, when using a flexible pen for calligraphy it may help to start with a dip pen, mastering the brush may benefit from using a dip brush before moving to a sable brush fountain pen. Methinks once the dip brush is mastered, moving to any brush FP should be easy.

 

Starting with artificial "hairs" in a brush FP, as a first step is also a good beginner choice, but the behavior of artificial and natural hair is different, so once the artificial hair FP is mastered, one will still need to refine one's skills to adapt them to the different touch required by natural hair.

With the Kuretake sable brushes, do you find that the tip doesn’t always return to straight vertical? I find that it is a lot of times a bit off.   Also would another ink make a difference?  I keep reading people use Platinum Carbon Black but that is probably for it’s waterproof properties.

[Number99]

7 hours ago, PotbellyPig said:

With the Kuretake sable brushes, do you find that the tip doesn’t always return to straight vertical? I find that it is a lot of times a bit off.   Also would another ink make a difference?  I keep reading people use Platinum Carbon Black but that is probably for it’s waterproof properties.

Animal hair has cuticles, and there is always friction between the hairs.

 It is advisable to learn the basics of traditional brush calligraphy.

 Without the friction of the cuticle, neither your cool hairstyle nor the traditional brush calligraphy will work.

 Brush pens made of animal hair and brush pens made of artificial hair so far are probably different categories for writing tools.

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by Number99

[inkstainedruth]

It's been a long time since I took any painting classes -- particularly watercolor -- and I never had any sable brushes (too expensive) but I remember having to re-"point" those brushes after cleaning the paint out of them.  

The oil paint brushes tended to be more "bristle-y" so less of an issue.

Somewhere in my house I have a brush painting/calligraphy set that my parents bought me when they took a trip to China in 1980, but I have never used it because I didn't want to futz around with it and never found a class to learn how to do it properly.  Not even sure I still have it, all these years later; although it might be in a drawer someplace in my house (along with random stuff like my old airbrush from a college course, and an ancient set of Doc Marten's Watercolor Dyes).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth