This is somewhat of a love letter to one of my favourite stationery items, the Tombow Dual Brush Pen. I keep a few of these in each of my pencil cases, and use them all the time.
Don’t be deceived by the name, because they aren’t pens at all. They’re markers. Dual, because they have two tips, a smaller fine tip and a longer brush tip. The colour comes out in a beautiful translucent way, and layers really nicely for a stronger shade, or blends with other colours. And the ink doesn’t bleed through the paper like markers often do.
I do use them for brush lettering, but I use the brush tip more frequently as a highlighter, or for making “bubble” letters. I also use them to add colour to some of my little drawings. The fine tip is great for drawing borders or boxes around my notes to organize and highlight.
I used to treat myself once in a while to a new colour (I buy them individually here and here), but I’m pretty happy with the set I have right now, and haven’t bought a new one in a really long time.
Top Ten Tombows
The pens are only labeled with the number, not the name. But I add the names here to give you an idea of which one is which. The names can found on this colour chart (which was really hard to find) and on the store displays as well.
And, I need to mention that the labeling wears off really quickly once you start using them. So I had to do a bit of research to figure out the numbers of mine again.
In no particular order, these are my top ten colours.
- 026 Yellow Gold
- 076 Green Ochre
- 098 Avocado
- 969 Chocolate
- 947 Burnt Sienna
- 942 Cappuccino
- 991 Light Ochre
- N89 Warm Grey 1
- N79 Warm Grey 2
- N75 Cool Grey 3
Special shout-out to 942 and 098. All the labelling is completely worn off both of these so they must be my two faves.
Two others worth mentioning: N49 Warm Grey 8, which I love but it’s a bit too dark on some papers, and I don’t use it a lot. And 850 Light Apricot, which I really wanted to love but I just never use.
Stationery in the Photo
P.S. Some days you just need a good live cam. Today I’m watching brown bears during the salmon run in an Alaska river.
