(Jesse Dictor is Toreador Magazine’s Editor. You can find more from online at his photography website.)
While Picasso and Co have a very small web appearance outside of Amazon, they are a company that seems like they are most popular in Japan. I’ve worked with other Picasso and Co pens and found this one to be the same- a pressure based pen that did a good job for the most part as long as they used according to the directions. They offer less flexibility than dip pens, but for the cost Picasso and Co’s Picasso 903 Pen is probably the best affordable pen you can get delivered easily from Amazon.
The base nib line width of around 0.6mm, which is a little thick for they type of illustrations I like to work on (its still regarded as Fine- I prefer Extra Fine). This nib is the recommended size for small writing but is a little thin for italic. It also has issues producing more ink on the page by holding pressure- this is a great quirk for writing letters but it isn’t as useful for illustrations. It also can create the look of scratching up the pages because of ink limitations. This is actually something I’ve heard some people really like, as it feels satisfying and impactful, but it can make my illustrations feel unprofessional. That said I probably wouldn’t only use this pen to produce something professionally.
They load very well with standard ink cartridges for many colors. I could see having two or three of this style around for different colors, specifically red as generally speaking doing mark ups with this pen seems to be its ideal use.
People have complained about the ink drying up when they let the pen sit for too long. I’ve actually never had this problem with any pen but I’ll update this page if I find this to be actually true.
The box it comes in is really nice. It’s quite a good gift for a professional who uses a pen at their desk that isn’t too proficient with pens. They have their own ink cartridges for easy set up but you can also inject ink using tools it comes with- I’d only get them the cartridges however as the reloading of ink can be very messy. If you are considering this for someone a little more pen minded you are probably better off finding something more specific with either a small nib or larger nib that feeds ink past basic writing.
Using the pen full to finished shows that the flow of ink doesn’t change too much based on the amount of ink left until it gets very low. When it is low also show the scratchy base nature of the pen. That said it writes very comfortably on even thin tracing paper so I wouldn’t worry about it actually scratching or damaging paper realistically.
The pen grip is very smooth and provides a lot of stability and control while writing. The long nib makes the grip pattern and distance to the paper a great match for how I hold the pen, cradled in my hand rather than grasping it with three fingers. I really insist on keeping the cap on the back while writing otherwise the pen feels very small in your hand. I do find if I start to write very quickly and very sloppily the nib part of the pen can start to rotate off, and it doesn’t take much to really loosen this part of the pen. Still I doubt many people will write this much vigor so it isn’t much of a concern.
I’ve been really happy with this pen as a fountain pen- it is probably a steal for the price. Be ready to pay $30 for most pens of this quality- that said you can also find a pen that is a steal at $30. A lot of the time you end up paying more for what the case of the pen is made of rather than the mechanical use of the pen- that said exhuming an element of status is part of the pen so you can’t forget about it as a gift.
Overall its hard to compare this Pen to ones in a similar price range. As a gift its perfect and I can’t recommend a pen to use over this. That said, for someone who likes working with ink, a lot of glass pens or even calligraphy style brushes. They likely already have a pen like this or have much better pens. More often we lack good glass pen options, or have broken our calligraphy brushes (don’t ask it happens) that are much better at the same price. This isn’t good as a gift for someone who isn’t familiar with ink however. It’s nub is a bit big for someone who is working on artwork actively though- unless they are ready to work on big pieces. The piece I worked on I made sure to draw on something 4 times the size of a regular piece of paper. A lot of gravity feed pens also have incredibly small nubs which a lot of young artists will prefer since they might not see the immediate benefits.
