Mineral Spirits, Pens and Colored Pencils Experiment

Happy Sunday Everyone!

I hope you have had a peaceful and blessed weekend.  We've had some warm and humid weather this weekend, but that is all to change tomorrow.  What's that saying....if you don't like the weather, wait a minute!

Tonight I decided to conduct a little experiment.  I love to color and I got a lovely new set of 48 Prismacolor pencils for Christmas.  I'm also getting more into doodling and word art, so I wanted to know what pens I have will work with the colored pencil/odorless mineral spirits technique without bleeding.  This was a very quick, spur-of-the-moment experiment, so please excuse  my super messy scribblings and coloring!

I used a piece of Canson Mixed Media 98lb paper for my test.  Then I proceeded to write in all the different black pens that I have.  I used the following:

• Uniball Signo Gel Pen
• Staedtler Ballpoint Pen
• Foray StyleMark Fine Felt Tip Pen
• Sharpie Marker
• Zig Millenium Pen (mine is almost dead)
• Stampin' Up! Stampin' Write Marker
• Bic Mark It Marker
• Copic Multiliner
• PITT Artist Pen

Here are some closeups of each pen experiment.  I'm pleased (and surprised) to say, that none of the pens lost their integrity by bleeding or fading.  I was most surprised by the Stampin' Up markers because they are water based, so I expected them to bleed.  What a nice surprise they didn't, because I have them in all the colors!  Yay, me!  I used standard odorless mineral spirits and a paper stump blender (sometimes called a tortillion), and I deliberately went over the outlines and drew the color outside the lines.  I wanted to be sure of the integrity of each ink.

Now my mind will be at ease regardless of which of my black pens I reach for when the word art and doodle bug strikes me!  How about you?  What's your favorite black pen?


Thanks for looking at my blog. I appreciate all the wonderful comments everyone leaves. Happy Crafting!