As I begin my journey into art markers, I have discovered immediately that I have no idea what I am doing. This is a new media for me, how do I hold it? How do I make a simple line? Coloring large areas, brush strokes, blending, fading…the complexity strikes me when I hold the first pen over some paper. Have you felt this way?
Maybe you bought some beautiful markers and you were so excited to use them; until you tried them. Fear not! Let's start with the basics and soon you will be blending and drawing like a pro. Let's draw some lines.
I’m going to assume you have chosen your paper and your markers already. Bleed-proof paper is best for accepting ink without damage. Cardstock will do or inkjet printer paper. Let’s make a line. Go ahead and try it. Well done, that’s your first line with your new marker. How does it look? Too fat, or too thin? Don’t worry, we can fix that. These dual-tip markers are amazingly flexible. Let’s go together now, using your broad tip put the wide side down, holding the pen almost straight up and down, and draw a straight line as fat as you can.
Good job! Now turn the tip ninety degrees and do it again – this time holding it perfectly straight up! The line will be very thin, draw it under the first line.
Do you think that is thin? We can do better. This time turn the tip so that the point is facing down, this should be another 90-degree turn of the marker in your hands. Give it a try, it should give you three lines like this:
While you are holding the marker here, let’s make some dots. Still holding the tip in the same position, just touch the paper and make a line of dots. These are delicate! While we are at it we could switch the tip around 180-degrees and do some horizontal dash marks too.
This little demonstration showed me how flexible the broad tip is on these markers. I was most excited to try the brush tip but in reality, the broad tip has impressed me the most. Just turning the marker in my hands gives me five or six different tools. And because of the shape of the marker body, each position feels comfortable in my hand.
I’m going to change shades as I go to the marker tip. This is a beautiful painting experience, that’s no doubt why they called it the brush tip. Wow, like pressing a paintbrush onto the paper. This is not a new experience at all, it feels so intuitive – but I don’t have to load the brush before each stroke! Press down and the flexible brush reacts the way a paintbrush would. Cover large areas in color with simple strokes. I really like dragging it horizontally to “paint” large areas. Slow strokes, controlled in the desired area. Like paint, I can blend it later or use marker 0 to fade it. Try a few lines, if you are like me you will get carried away here and get comfortable rather quickly.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Pretty great, isn’t it? Two markers in one – reliable lines or the flexibility of a paintbrush tip. Stop reading now and go create! Get inspired! Share your art with us, we love to see what you can do.