What Pen To Use With Watercolor For Best Results

I love drawing my illustrations using both pen and watercolor. Today let’s talk about What pen to use with watercolor for best results.

I also love my watercolor florals easy paintings and I always finish them off with a pen outline. While using Watercolor and pen together there are a few key points you need to follow and I’ll explain them below!

There is nothing more frustrating than painting over your black pen lines and have them bleed! It’s very easy to prevent that with the right pen.

---

Affiliate links have been used at no extra cost to the reader. You can read my full disclosure here. 

Before we explore what pen to use with watercolor, let me quickly explain – do you use the pen before or after watercoloring?

Do you ink before or after watercolor?

If you watercolor first, you will need to wait for the watercolor to dry completely on the paper before coming back later and outlining with pen.

If you watercolor after drawing pen lines, you can paint over it almost immediately as the pen dries on the paper super quick compared to watercolor.

Personally, I try to ink before watercoloring. The main reason for this is I am often impatient. I don’t like to wait for my paintings to dry before drawing my lines.

What pen to use with watercolor?

Different black pens come with different inks – mainly oil based or a water based ink. Some pens might have a hybrid ink that has some water properties- but we will treat them as a water based ink itself here. I’ll explain each of these in detail in this post further, but here is the gist.

Watercolor first, Pen second: You can use any black pen! I like using fine-tipped MONO Drawing Pens or the MONO Twin Permanent Marker too. Make sure your paper is completely dry to the touch before outlining!

Pen first, Watercolor second: Use an oil-based pen like this MONO Twin Permanent Marker

Overall the best pen to use with watercolor regardless of whether you watercolor first or second for me is the MONO Twin Permanent Marker or any black pen that uses an oil based ink.

Now let’s explore the two methods in detail.

Can you use watercolor over pen?

Yes! You can watercolor over pen as long as you are using an oil-based black pen. My most used oil-based black pen is this MONO Twin Permanent marker for this Watercolor And Pen technique.

You should also make it a practice to erase all of your pencil lines after inking and before watercoloring.

Can you Outline your watercoloring

Yes, you can easily outline your watercoloring after it has dried completely. The paper should feel dry to the touch. Often the watercoloring might feel dry, but the paper is still cool to the touch, indicating the presence of moisture that can cause the pen ink to bleed.

What pen to use with watercolor to outline- All Fineliner pens are great for this!

Here is another example where my watercoloring lost a lot of definition due to color bleed, but the black pen outline help outline

---

Watch my start to finish YouTube video:

Conclusion: what pen to use with watercolor

When it comes to what pen to use with watercolor, an oil based pen is always a safe bet. You can use it before watercoloring or after the watercolor has dried to outline. The choice is yours!

---

---

---