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Color Pen key 5

A round pen that paints a living, varied run of colour pulled from a gradient as you draw.

What it does

The Color Pen draws a plain round line with no connecting web - but its colour isn't a single swatch. Pick a gradient, palette, Rainbow or Complement and the pen pulls its colour straight from that ramp as it moves: the direction of travel walks the gradient, so a curving stroke shades from one hue to the next and a full loop draws a whole colour wheel. It's colour as something that flows under your hand, not a colour you set per stroke.

Think of it as a loaded brush or a dirty palette: its job is lively, harmonious colour and texture - graded fills, iridescent ribbons, confetti and petals - not picking one exact shade. For deliberate single colours, draw with a normal brush and your Primary swatch.

How to use

Press 5 or pick Color Pen from the brush menu.
Open Brush settings and set Colour to a gradient, palette, Rainbow or Complement. (Primary or Secondary draw one solid colour - the wheel hides.)
Draw a curve or a loop and watch the hue walk the gradient with the bend of your hand.
Use the Colour direction wheel to steer how direction maps to colour (below).

Try this Set Colour to Fire, turn Range down to a sliver and draw loosely - you get a tight, harmonious band of warm colour that reads as one rich hue with life in it. Then switch a connecting brush to From mark and weave over your Color Pen strokes: the web inherits the colours you laid down. See Connections › Colour.

The Colour direction wheel

When the colour comes from a gradient, a conic wheel shows which heading comes out which colour, with two sliders and a toggle to steer it:

Rotate: Spins the whole map - swing your favourite colour round to your most natural drawing direction.
Range: How much of the palette a full turn covers. 1 sweeps the whole ramp; turn it down and a curving or reversing stroke stays inside a colour arc instead of snapping to the opposite hue - the difference between a colourist and a clown. (A very low Range reads almost as a single rich colour.)
Relative direction: Anchors the colour to the stroke's start heading, so the same gesture gives the same colour run whichever way you face the page - off by default (absolute compass), on for repeatable marks.

Settings

Colour: The gradient, palette, Rainbow or Complement the pen draws from - the same set the colours palette and the web use. Primary/Secondary draw a single solid colour.
Size & Opacity: The global sliders at the top of the brush settings panel. Lower the opacity and let strokes overlap to build richer, layered colour.
Pen bindings: Pressure and tilt can drive the line's size and opacity - the Pen section. Full guide.
Feeds the web: Though it draws no web itself, every point the Color Pen lays carries the colour it painted - so a connecting brush set to From mark picks those colours up and carries them along its threads. See Connections › Colour.

Who it's for Gradient-under-the-hand colour is at its best for lively, varied colour and texture - filling a passage with graded, harmonious colour faster than you could mix it, or letting colour flow through the web. It's not a tool for choosing one deliberate shade; reach for a swatch when you need this exact colour.