While I don’t draw all that well, for the usual reason that I haven’t practiced enough, I do sometimes want the option of making lasting outlines to a painted object or just make squiggles and doodles without resorting to stamps or trying to painstakingly get a smooth, uninterupted but still swishy and loose line with a thin brush which has to be dipped every stroke.

I’ve tried waterproof ink felt pens, but for some reason they tend to smear anyway when you paint or vanish over them – I don’t know if the acrylic surface isn’t grabby enough or what exactly happens.

So I was delighted to discover that you can actually get refillable pens that work with Golden High Flow paint as if it was ink. I bought a whole package, since they’re not all that expensive compared to brushes, and rinsing out every time you need a new colour is perhaps rather wasteful. The pen itself comes with a 2 mm round tip which can be switched to a 1 mm tip, these reside in a little holder with a spring to pump the paint to the tip. This has to be pulled out every time you refill, but you can buy an extender separately (why?!) which makes the process a lot less messy. That’s the grey doodad in the photo, a little tube with a thread at both ends. You unscrew the tube with the pump permanently installed, rather than peel the pump from the pen itself, which can be tricky if you don’t have nails.

Even if it’s just for signing your paintings I’d say it’s worth it. But who knows, perhaps I’ll actually begin to draw more now when it’s combined with the painting which I’m much more comfortable with. There’s easy lettering too, instead of steel pens that need to be dipped all the time – didn’t get any flat shaped nibs for the markers this time round, but still many things for me to experiment with for now.

I’ll be back when I have some actual paintings to share. Anyone out there like to share their line work in paintings and which tools they use?