A drawing tool I didn't know existed

[olivermoss]

In my Sketchbox this month I got Derwent blender pens meant for pencil drawings. I've used those little paper rolls for pencil blending, but using those effectively can be wearing on the wrist.

I decided to do a quick drawing and blend one side only:







I am pleased with the effect, You need to be careful as it does cause some bleed. I've gone over everything on the right with the blender pen. If I was making a finished drawing I'd pick and choose what to do. I wanted to post this because I think it can make some traditional pencil work a bit more camera friendly and easier to share digitally. Pencil shading can get visually noisy when scanning and pencil can take on a shiny effect. This seems to take both.

They also work well with colored pencil. I've been poking through sketchbooks and trying them out on various old drawings. But I wanted to test them specifically on a mechanical pencil drawing. So I hope my little demo was useful!

These come in multiple sizes. I got one fine tip and one broad tip in my box.

Comments

[goss]

You are so right about how the sheen of the lead pencil and the "visual noise", as you say, can make it difficult to get an accurate scan of pencil work. If this blender neutralizes both of those issues then it's definitely worth checking out. Thanks for sharing. :)

[olivermoss]

My first thought was 'Darnnit, these would have been useful on some past projects.'

[amberdreams]

Never seen these before, how interesting! Thanks!

[olivermoss]

Thanks!

[amberdreams]

I've ordered a pack of 2 from Amazon because they were so cheap it's worth a try.

[adafrog]

Neat.

[syntheid]

Oh that's interesting. I've seen a lot of colored pencil artists use solvents like rubbing alcohol, baby oil (not totally sure if that becomes an archival issue though), Zest It Pencil Blend (really popular from what I've seen), odorless mineral spirits, etc, applied with a brush. I wonder if what's in the blender pen is like one of those kinds of formulas in pen-form.

Kinda wonder if the blender application helps with transfer kinda like a fixative, like will the graphite rub off less on a page lying on top of it? (I should probably just try this out myself ahah.)

[olivermoss]

The packaging doesn't say what is in them, which would be useful for refilling purposes :)