A common delusion as to pens for drawing is that only the finer-pointed kinds are suitable. To the contrary, most of the so-called “etching pens” and crow-quills and lilliputian affairs sold are not only unnecessary, but positively harmful. They encourage the niggling methods of the amateur, and are, besides, untrustworthy and dreadfully scratchy. You can but rarely depend upon them for the drawing of a continuous line; frequently they refuse to mark at all. I know very well that I shall be exclaimed against when I say that a good medium-pointed pen or fine-pointed school nib are far better than three-fourths of the pens especially made for draughtsmen, but that is the case.

With practice, one can use almost any writing nib for the production of a pen-drawing. Even the broad-pointed J pen is useful. Quill pens are delightful to work with for the making of pen-studies in a bold, free manner. A well-cut quill flies over all descriptions of paper, rough or smooth, without the least catching of fibres or spluttering. It is the freest and least trammelling of pens, and seems almost to draw of its own volition.

Brandauer’s pens are, generally, very good, chiefly for the reason that they have circular points that rarely become scratchy. They make a small nib, No. 515, which works and wears well; this last an unusual quality in the small makes. Perry & Co. sell two very similar nibs, No. 601 (a so-called “etching pen”) and No. 25; they are both scratchy. Gillott’s crowquill, No. 659, is a barrel pen, very small and very good, flexible, and capable of producing at once the finest and the boldest lines; but Brandauer’s Oriental pen, No. 342 EF, an ordinary fine-pointed writing pen, is just as excellent, and its use is more readily learnt. It takes some time and practice to discover the capabilities of the Gillott crowquill; the other pen’s possibilities are easier found. Besides, the tendency with a microscopic nib is to niggled work, which is not to be desired at the cost of vigour. Mitchell’s F pen is a fine-pointed school writing nib. It is not particularly flexible, but very reliable and lasts long. Gillott has recently introduced a very remarkable nib, No. 1000, frankly a drawing pen, flexible in the extreme, capable of producing at will the finest of hair-lines or the broadest of strokes.

Some illustrators make line drawings with a brush. Mr. J. F. Sullivan works in this way, using a red sable brush with all superfluous hairs cut away, and fashioned to a point. Lampblack is the best medium for the brush.

To draw in line with a brush requires long practice and great dexterity, but men who habitually work in this way say that its use once learnt, no one would exchange it for the pen. Of this I can express no opinion. Certainly there are some obvious advantages in using a brush. It does not ever penetrate the surface of the paper, and it is capable of producing the most solid and smooth lines.

Stylographic and fountain pens, of whatever make, are of no use whatever. Glass pens are recommended by some draughtsmen for their quality of drawing an equable line; but they would seem to be chiefly useful in mathematical and engineering work, which demands the same thickness of line throughout. These pens would also prove very useful in architects’ offices, in drawing profiles of mouldings, tracery, and crockets, because, not being divided into two nibs, they make any variety of curve without the slightest alteration in the character of the line produced. Any one accustomed to use the ordinary divided nibs will know the difficulty of drawing such curves with them.