If you've known me for a while you probably know me as a pretty artsy person. I doodle a lot and I have an entire wall of art in my room. There are 16 pieces of art on that wall and only 3 of them were not made by me. I haven't added to that wall in a while, but I do have quite the stash of canvases at the moment, so I hope to work with those soon...
Anyway, I've always loved pens and markers and anything that I can use to make more art. Recently this love has kind of escalated into an obsession after getting a small pack of Copic markers for my birthday. I thought I would take this post to show off my collection of pens and markers (but mostly pens). If you're a fellow lover of pens, you might like this post a lot!
Crappy picture quality, oops, but this is my pen station. The drawers on the left contain pens and the bin on the right has my markers.
Starting with the pen drawer. These are all of my fineliners. I've had the Faber Castell pack (left) for a while. Most art pens are labeled with numbers for sizes, but Faber Castells are labelled S, M, F, B, and so on. Plus they have those nice little examples on the front of the pack. Even the smallest size isn't super tiny, so if you like having bolder lines in your drawings, Faber Castells will probably work great.
The pens in the middle are the most recently acquired pens I have. Every time I went to Michael's I would look at these Staedtler fineliners and wonder if I should get them or not. Last time I was there I finally gave in. It was worth it. I like them a lot because they're my favorite size (0.3) and they're smooth and colorful. It took me a couple weeks to figure out how to close the case. I actually went to my friend Katie's house and her stepmom just happened to have a pack sitting out and she showed me how to close it. So thank you, Mrs. Cheryl!
The Copic fineliners are on the left. I REALLY love these. As you can see, they don't all look the same and there's one sitting out of the case. Funny story. If you like to doodle on your skin at all, DO NOT USE COPIC PENS ON YOUR SKIN!!! It will completely destroy the pen and make it unusable. So far I believe my Faber Castells have been fine on skin, but these Copics are NOT made for that at all. I tested it out with two pens and they both crapped out on me. Sadly, they were my favorite sizes, 0.1 and 0.3. So I asked for replacements for my birthday. I won't go into all of the details, but it took a couple tries to get the right sizes and I still don't have a 0.3 Copic pen. I'll have to pick one up next time I go to Michael's. So those four silver Copic pens are a brush pen that they accidentally sent us, two 0.1 pens, and an extra 0.03. Oops. Anyway, I really do love these pens because the smallest sizes are super tiny and they're great for detail work. They're my favorite out of these three packs because of the variety of sizes and the quality of the pens. Just don't use them on your skin...
Gelly Rolls! I found out about these pens by watching Baylee Jae videos on YouTube. We have three packs of these that Tessa and I share because she bought one of the packs. We both like them a lot. I think they're great for doodling, but they all have different looks.
Metallics (Top Left): I haven't used these very much because it's the pack that Tessa bought and I'm not a huge fan of metallic things. They show up really nicely on dark and colored papers. For some reason there are two yellows in our pack, and I'm not sure what color we're missing, but I don't think it's too big of a deal. If you like shiny, you'll like metallic Gelly Rolls.
Souffle (Top Right): These were the Gelly Rolls I was really excited about getting when I saw them. They were the most expensive pack at Michael's, but they were advertised to show up on dark surfaces with a matte look to them. I LOVE anything matte, so I got them. My first test with these was really disappointing at first, because they didn't show up! They were completely invisible! It was like I'd taken a white crayon to a white piece of paper. BUT! A few minutes later I looked over at that page and there was the bright color! If you decide to get Souffle Gelly Rolls, their color won't show up on a dark surface until they dry. And don't draw over lines you've already made with these pens because it will completely mess them up even if they've already dried. Despite that, I love these pens now that I know how they work. I love drawing something in a black pen or marker and adding details over the black with these Souffles. The colors are lovely and matte and great for doodling.
Moonlight (Bottom Left): This was the first pack of Gelly Rolls that I got. They are super bright, practically neon colors that almost look like they're glowing. I don't have much to say about them, but I do like them. Again, great for doodling, as most Gelly Rolls are.
Glitter (Bottom Right): Tessa bought these pens separately from the packs because who doesn't love glitter? I like using these to add sparkly touches to my drawings. Usually a few dots is enough to add a nice amount of sparkle.
Opaque White: More Gelly Rolls! I had been searching for some opaque white pens for another project I was working on and every one I tried just wasn't cutting it for me. They were either too sheer or just plain bad quality. I got these for my birthday and they are PERFECT! These work as well on dark surfaces as a Sharpie works on anything. They show up fantastically. If you're in need of an opaque white pen, these Gelly Rolls are probably your best option.
The three white pens were my other opaque white attempts. The one on the left is a brand called "Recollections," and it required going over the lines a couple times to be opaque. Even then it wasn't good enough for me. The two in the middle are "Ranger" pens. I don't remember why I did't like them exactly, but they're kind of like regular gel pens. The two pens on the right are the remaining Faber Castells from my first pack. I mostly use them for outlining on paintings.
I love American Crafts Chalk Markers! I got my first pack of them when I was first introduced to hand lettering. The four pens on the right are the oldest (I used up a couple from that pack) and the 5 on the left were birthday presents. I'm not sure where the white one in the very middle came from. I haven't gotten a chance to use those birthday presents yet but I did test them out when I got them and the metallic colors are really nice. The white chalk markers really look like chalk on dark paper and they stand out nicely.
These are Koi Coloring Brush Pens. I don't use them much anymore but they were basically my replacements for Copics when I wanted Copics but didn't want to buy them and didn't have a birthday or Christmas coming up. I do like them because there's such a wide variety of colors in this one pack and I don't recall them being overly expensive. The one thing I don't like is that they're brush pens. And they're those really loose brush pens. I don't know how else to put it. You don't get a lot of control over brush pens like this, but they're nice for coloring because the colors are bright and smooth. And there are so many colors!
I'm finishing this long, rambly post about pens and markers with my lovely Copic Markers! I was very happy to get these for my birthday this year. Every artist knows that Copic markers are the best markers out there. There are hundreds of colors and different types and if you mix a black copic marker and a yellow copic marker on paper, the yellow one doesn't get gross! And you can blend colors all you want without messing up the tips. And the colors are so bright and they have wonderful quality. I feel like I don't have to explain them too much because they're so popular. Plus this post has been long enough.
So there's my extensive collection of pens!
Now here's my next blog series project! Everyone who uses Pinterest knows this feeling. Most of us have boards filled with hundreds of DIY projects that we'd like to do someday. Unfortunately, "someday" gets put off over and over again while more and more projects pile up in that DIY board. I'm on a mission to complete the projects I've pinned and document how they turn out on this blog. I have 602 pins in my DIY board, so I highly doubt I'll do them all, but the ones I do manage to complete will be shared here. I plan to make at least one project every month. Once I finish a project, I'll move it from my DIY Board into the new Pinterest Projects (Completed DIY's) board. There's nothing there yet, but there will be soon! Follow one or both of those boards to keep up with my progress in this endeavor.
