Getting back to pure drawing

Hand drawn notes

I like the Pental Colour Brush (the big one). The brush gives a varied line from bold expressive strokes to hairline mark making. The only problem is they are not made to last. The brush is a thirsty boy and the refills are $4 a go, not sustainable really when I'm sketching and doodling the night away. There have been third party ink refill videos on YouTube but these seem to involve removing the tubes that regulate the ink flow when you give the pen barrel a squeeze. Not ideal.

I made a 'Frankenstein' syringe from bits and pieces to refill ink cartridges a few years ago, and I use that to squirt a few drops of Platinum Carbon Ink into the pen barrel. You can't get much in there because of pneumatics but it's enough to keep the pen going for plenty of sketching.

Another problem with using third part inks is ink flow. It's not as good as the proprietary ink that comes with the pen even with a carbon ink, which is non clogging and designed for fountain pens. This flow problem is to do with evaporation. Something I found using dip pens is an open bottle of ink will thicken enough to make it a struggle using the pen. Regarding the brush pen, a way to dilute the ink is by dipping the brush tip into a small glass of water and squeezing the sides gently. This is enough to get the ink flow back making those lovely hairline strokes. Not an exact science but with trial and error it becomes workable.

After a spell of highly intricate comics work I want to get back to drawing freehand. The work I have been doing recently involves a lot of technical elements before the drawing begins and the joy of pure drawing is not there. I thought going digital might work and it did for a bit but again, the 'computing' side of the process creeps in and destroys the craft. The Ai revolution continues to destroy human interactions with the physical world preaching online digital to be superior and it is, if you are one of the big tech companies controlling this new product. Personally, I find Ai lacking in any depth and the more it's enforced upon me personally through Microsoft and Google the less I want to do with it.

And I do want to get back to drawing freehand before it's too late and that choice will no longer be there.