Anyway, not every pen works well on the rough, porous surface of these natural materials. Sharpies bleed, and their their soft nibs quickly degrade. Microns simply don’t work, and neither do gel pens. Faber-Castell Pitt pens, however, work aMAZingly well. When you’re done, that rock won’t even remember how it used to look when it was plain! I decorated the rock above as a paperweight for my partner for our anniversary (he did not appreciate last year’s anniversary present nearly enough, so this year he gets a rock). Although smooth, light-colored river rocks obviously work best as a surface for pen drawings, the Faber-Castell Pitt pens, with black ink, dispense ink well even on fairly rough natural surfaces, and the black is India ink, which shows up even on darker backgrounds. Next »
The pens also work well on really porous natural surfaces, such as the wood of my kiddos’ building blocks (which are our favorite things to embellish). Sharpies really bleed on wood, and although you can easily stain wood in vibrant colors, you can’t do any detail work with staining. Faber-Castell Pitt pens are really pricey, so I’d never suggest them if their nibs wore down easily on these rough surfaces, but they stand up well even in the hands of my kiddos, who are MUCH more heavy-handed with the art supplies than I am. My kids have ruined many delicate, fine-tipped Micron pens, and even the heavier tips of Prismacolor markers, but the tips of these Faber-Castell pens don’t have the tempting amount of give that tends to lure them into pressing down too hard, and the ink flows well with even a light touch, which also encourages them to work gently. The Faber-Castell pens come in a wide range of sizes, but the two that I like the best for work on natural surfaces like these are the Medium tip and the Brush tip. The ink will eventually wear off of materials that get a lot of wear, like my kids’ building blocks, so you’d do well to seal those, but there’s no need to seal something like a paperweight. Which my partner had better LIKE this year, or there’s no telling what he’s getting for our anniversary next year!
