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My bestie gifted me the 48-pen set for my birthday and I Googled videos to see ways to use them, but most of what came up was not exactly helpful. Can anyone refer me to some good "this is how you do it" videos for these? I'm sure that they're similar to the Zigs, so if that's what you link to, that's cool, too. Thanks in advance!
So I watched Heather's videos (thanks again) and those, along with Diane's comments (thank you, too), confirmed what I already suspected. I had a general idea of what they were about but kind of wanted to see if there was anything beyond my initial thoughts that would up the game a bit. I'm sure that Jennifer's videos (thank you, too, canada goose) will include more details, so I'll check that out, as well, but I'll probably just go ahead and play with them like I suspected I would. I'm talking in circles, so I'm going to stop now... ;)
Yeah, just play with them. I think the biggest thing for me is that they don't seem to work well on all papers, especially cardstock, Bristol Smooth and watercolor paper work best (for me at least), once I figured that out I liked using them more.
I bought the 48-set for myself a few months back. I've only used them a few times but really love them. Need to play again soon, I'm getting the itch to watercolor. I prefer to lay the ink on, then use a brush dipped in water to spread the color similar to watercoloring. I haven't used mine as straight-up markers yet.
I wrote and asked them how to store...upright or horizontal. They recommend upright with brush up.
And I have found that a few gentle shakes back and forth with the pen horizontal gets the ink moving into the brush.
Paint like you would use watercolor, except you don't have to keep dipping into the paint ;)
In case you haven't noticed, I'm not too detailed on that kind of instructions.
Upright with tips up????? Wow! That is totally counterintuitive to the normal approach with any kind of pen/marker that we use.
I wonder if I should be storing the Zigs this way? I have been storing them horizontally. I need to check this out before I ruin them. :?
Thanks for sharing this storage tip on the arteza brush pens.
I've been scouring my email trying to find when I wrote to Arteza about the storage. I don't know how many times I looked and couldn't find it. Finally found it this morning:
FEB 05, 2018 | 04:13PM UTC Karolina replied:
Hello Diane, thank you for reaching out!
We recommend storing the Real Brush Pens vertically with brush tips up and make sure to keep them away from direct sunlight as this may evaporate the ink. When you’re ready to use them just shake them in a whipping motion with the caps on tight, to activate the ink flow.
Kind Regards,
Karolina
And I found some more info about storing Zigs in another post here on SCS:
09-14-2017 10:53 AM by bjeans
Just fyi, this is what Kuretake says about storage of Clean Color Brushes:
"Hello Beth,
Thank you for reaching out to Kuretake, to answer your question the clean color real brush needs to be stored horizontally. However, while using the brushes if you need to keep them vertical just during the use you are more than welcome to do so but continue to keep them horizontally and stored in room temperature climate.
Thank you,
Morgan Micheli"
My sense is that a lot of people store them vertically and they do fine, just wanted to pass along what the company line is. (Actually, I asked and one CS rep said vertically - I asked if she was sure and she emailed back an apology and said horizontally. Then I emailed someone who had helped me with a Kuretake Gansai question, and his response is above.)
Thank you Dianne and Cara for doing the research on how to store Zigs. I guess I am storing them correctly (horizontally), though sometimes it seems like I don’t have sufficient fluid at the tip when I go to use them.
I think I will add the whipping-motion before cap removal, recommended by the Arteza person, to see if that improves ink flow.
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Last edited by Boss; 07-24-2019 at 05:37 AM..
Reason: flub
Kristina Werner just posted a video on her blog about watercoloring supplies, and spoke about Artezas. One correction - which she may have made: she said you can only buy Artezas in multi-color packs, not single pens. Actually, you can buy four-packs of one color directly from Arteza. Kind of overkill in my book, but least they’re available. They all say “limited stock” though.
(I don’t have any since I have Zigs and we use them in an occasional, ongoing class at my LSS. And because I love them. I don’t enjoy coloring, but the Zigs are the exception to the rule - for coloring, watercoloring, techniques, blending, etc. So Artezas may be quite similar.)
Thanks for the input, everyone! I need to rearrange my "color medium" storage, as everything is not in direct sunlight, but still in bright light near a window, and it is Las Vegas, so...
I will be away from home for a few days (and can't take these with me), but I intend to play with them next week and possibly watch some videos...
I store all of my markers horizontally, because it makes the most sense to me. Honestly, it is all too confusing to try to keep all the different "rules" straight. I actually think companies make a lot of this stuff up as they go along, because some of it doesn't make sense scientifically. I do remember learning in my Copic certification class that alcohol markers can be stored vertically or horizontally.
I don't store my dye-based ink pads upside down either. I do turn them upside down for about 5 minutes before using them, if I remember.
I have the Arteza pens, but haven't mastered them by any means. Recently I saw a video by Cathy Zelskie: where she is swatching her new pens along with a download.
Iliana with My Sweet Petunia uses these markers. Mine are like hers without color names or numbers. She gave each pen a number and made swatches that way. Here is one of her videos where she is using the pens, in the blog post: http://blog.mysweetpetunia.com/2018/...-blog-hop.html
I like using these kind of pens of Bristol paper the best, but sometimes like whiter paper, so will reach for watercolor paper.
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Ok, to be methodical, I also wrote to Tonic Studios to see what they said about their Nuvo Aqua Flow pens (I have a bunch of them and REALLY like them!). Here's what they said:
On it's side works best!
Kind Regards,
Michelle Sheldon
Tonic Studios Customer Service
I have the Arteza and the Tonic, and I think I'm going to do both in the horizontal mode. I want to see if there is a problem with the Arteza leaking or anything.
It just means a couple more storage cubes to my coloring media. :rolleyes:
My hubby got me the largest set of these for Christmas in 2017 and to be honest, I keep trying them and not loving them. On regular watercolor paper, they don’t blend for me like I’ve seen in the online videos. They do much better on a smooth Bristol, but you need to have a fairly light touch with the water, or it will pill. The brush tips are much softer than I like as well. I really wanted to love these, but gotta say I kind of feel “eh” about them. That said, I DO love how many colors I have and I have had the best success by scribbling the color onto a tile or artists’s palette and then taking the color to my paper with a regular brush. Just my 2 cents.
My hubby got me the largest set of these for Christmas in 2017 and to be honest, I keep trying them and not loving them. On regular watercolor paper, they don’t blend for me like I’ve seen in the online videos. They do much better on a smooth Bristol, but you need to have a fairly light touch with the water, or it will pill. The brush tips are much softer than I like as well. I really wanted to love these, but gotta say I kind of feel “eh” about them. That said, I DO love how many colors I have and I have had the best success by scribbling the color onto a tile or artists’s palette and then taking the color to my paper with a regular brush. Just my 2 cents.
I have Zig Clean Color Brushes, not Arteza, but have a question: have you tried more than one type watercolor paper?
A few years ago I took a live, on-line sketch/watercolor class, and was doing fine, but one day suddenly couldn’t blend colors well. I finally realized I mistakenly grabbed some Strathmore WC paper instead of what I had been using - just inexpensive Canson. I switched back to Canson and blending was easy again.
Someone else in the class posted about how she was struggling, and I asked what paper she was using - it was Strathmore. She switched to another paper and also was fine.
I’m not saying inexpensive Strathmore is not as good as Canson, just that it does not work for me; there was a noticeable difference when mistakenly using it without knowing it.
So maybe try another paper? I use Arches for good paper and Canson for less expensive, and occasionally Rangers for just a little water and paint (or it will pill), plus a few others that somehow made it into the house, but the point is sometimes it’s the paper. Good luck!
My hubby got me the largest set of these for Christmas in 2017 and to be honest, I keep trying them and not loving them. On regular watercolor paper, they don’t blend for me like I’ve seen in the online videos. They do much better on a smooth Bristol, but you need to have a fairly light touch with the water, or it will pill. The brush tips are much softer than I like as well. I really wanted to love these, but gotta say I kind of feel “eh” about them. That said, I DO love how many colors I have and I have had the best success by scribbling the color onto a tile or artists’s palette and then taking the color to my paper with a regular brush. Just my 2 cents.
I had the same issues with the Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers. I sold the small collection I had.
Yeah, just play with them. I think the biggest thing for me is that they don't seem to work well on all papers, especially cardstock, Bristol Smooth and watercolor paper work best (for me at least), once I figured that out I liked using them more.
I have found that the type of paper makes a big difference when using watercolor markers and other inks. I usually use mixed-media or watercolor paper.
Videos or online instructions or hints can help too. Zig, for example, has some simple graphics that show a few techniques.
Every medium has a learning curve.That’s why I took a couple Copic workshops - I wanted to make sure my indifference was personal preference, not because I needed to learn some skills.
Arteza Real Brush Pens
