docrafts Artiste Watercolour pens

docrafts is the UK's leading papercraft supplier, providing over 2000 outlets in the UK & Ireland with all sorts of cardmaking and scrapbooking products! These lovely watercolour pens are part of their acid-free, water based markers that are perfect for using with ink stamps and to add colour onto fine details. But how do they perform for the colourist?

Includes a wallet to store the pens

They come in a handy wallet with elastic to house each pen, making them easy to transport if you take your colouring outside of the home. The wallet can also fold into a triangular shape for you to position and display on your colouring station to keep on hand. The pens are very thin and delicate in the hand, each one measuring just 14cm long with a very narrow barrel. Such a slender and short casing makes me wonder how long these will last, and are probably more suitable for smaller areas and infrequent use than your daily go-to pens. 

36 tones

​The pens are dual-tipped, featuring a brush and bullet nib for your preference. The brush is very long and very skinny, making it ideal for getting into nooks and crannies like a fineliner, whilst being able to fill larger areas all with one nib. Occasionally the brush will push up into the pen slightly, forcing you to pull it back down with your fingertips. It's not a huge problem and doesn't happen often, but it's something to consider if you're generally heavy-handed with your colouring.

There are 36 colours in this pack which is a good variety and selection of unusual tones.  The colour laydown is vibrant and bold, with no really subtle shades to be found in this particular pack. As with all waterbased pens, you will find streaking on larger areas and feathering if you go over the same place more than a couple of times.

Two nibs for different types of colouring

Unfortunately the pens don't have any kind of labelling system, which meant I had to number them myself and create a colour chart for them to correspond to. The lids have a semi-transparent idea of the colour but nothing you can really identify them with. Having to reference a chart before selecting the pen you want rather than glancing at the lid may be somewhat inconvenient, and is a design flaw in my opinion. You could of course stick a coloured lable on to the pen itself, but it really should be something that was done by the designer as standard.

You have to add your own numbering or colour system to the pens

Overall, the pens give great colour, are fine enough to use on detailed illustrations and won't bleed through most colouring book paper. The downside is that I can't see them lasting long and will use them occasionally rather than daily, which is a shame as they have such a diverse range of colours for waterbased markers. They're not *too* expensive at £25 and having that storage caddy they would make a welcome gift for the colourist in your life :)

Here's some quick Christmas star baubles I've coloured with the pens so you can see how they colour in a larger space.

These pens were given to me in exchange for an honest review. You can find them on Amazon here:

Docrafts Watercolour Dual-Tip Pens and Caddy Brush, Fine (Pack of 36)