trying to learn to enjoy markers
happy 311 day. let's (breathtakingly unrelatedly) talk about markers.
the first set of markers i ever remember owning and loving were the "bold" crayola marker 8 count. i was reminded of them this week as i was trying out some markers that came in the latest upcrate box - a subscription i discovered over quarantine and just picked back up after a couple-year hiatus. in my last figure sketch post, i talked about how i don't really like alcohol markers.
i'm realizing that probably what i didn't like were the colors. they are mostly pastel, grays, etc. i have a very humble collection compared to a lot of artists i know and follow, and most of them came from subscription boxes. i picked up the skintone copic markers from a local art store the week they closed - that building has since been razed and now a towering building of luxury housing sits there, awkwardly imho.
alcohol markers are expensive. the copic brand, which used to be the standard in art supply shops (fortunately no longer the case) are notorious for having caps that crack and then dry out the entire marker! and this is a packaging bug that the company and its community just deals with? this is all to say that i have historically found alcohol markers in subscription boxes and art sets to be, personally, unwanted filler.
upcrate #66 came with 6 colorspaze markers in - bless them - bold colors, a permanent ink blackliner, 6 color pencils - the real unwanted filler of this box, respectfully - and a white charcoal pencil. here's a page from my sketchbook swatching and using everything:
i could have lived without the charcoal and colored pencils. i used to work solely in colored pencils when i first started doing pixel art on paper, so i have plenty. some artists do incredible things with colored pencil and i am very proud and in awe of them but i do not relate to them. watercolor pixel art is simply so much better on my wrists.
markers are really growing on me for 30 second figure sketches, like i did here. after doing a bunch, i went back with a second marker to use the fine point tip for accents.
i thought i was going to hate the chisel tip on these, but i actually liked how these turned out over past sketches i've done with brush tip markers. it could just be that it was a novel experience, so i'll definitely work with these more over the next few months before i dare buy an actual marker on purpose. again.
last week i made an order of printer paper and, to make free shipping, i threw in some crayons (disaster, don't do) and a pack of magic scented markers. there's something dark-sided about giving markers a scent, yeah? when crayola came out with magic scented crayons, i used to sell shavings of the bubblegum scent so my fourth grade classmates can chew on it. that was the first time i got detention - my dad said i was "basically a drug dealer" - so, since you asked, yes, that was my anti-capitalist villain origin story.
i love how the colors worked together during this session, but the headache from the scents was not worth it lol. i'm not even usually sensitive to smells like that! i think they were just too artificial. dr. sketch markers, like most cheap markers for kids, are water-based but probably don't say that on the packaging because water should be a basic human right and not something you pay for to save money on shipping printer paper. in this pack, yellow smells like "banana" but if you get a larger pack, the yellow smells like "lemon". dark-sided.
the cool thing about water-based markers is that you can play around with the ink by adding water. that seems obvious, but i was telling a friend about the marker scents giving me a headache and she was like "wait, it never occurred to me to treat markers like watercolors!" so there you go. just make sure they are water-based; it doesn't work with alcohol based markers. for those, you'd need to use...alcohol.
today i got billed for the next upcrate box which should be headed my way on the 15th. i hope it's not markers and colored pencils again. either way, i'll let you know, since you asked.
xoxo jenn
