Dixon Markette spotlight and 1-minute demo videos

I seem to get questions regarding the virtually impossible to find Dixon Markette (historically a popular marker with caricature artists) from time to time. While this marker produces fairly dark lines, they tend to bleed through several other sketchbook pages over time. Got a handful on a trip to Canada a couple of years ago, but I have not found any online nor brick-and-mortar store that carries them in the USA. Just made these 3 short videos covering my limited experience with them, so click on the pictures if you want to check them out.
These Dixon Markette markers were manufactured in Mexico. The paint markings on the barrel while distinctive tend to chip and peel off rather easily. I would advise against storing them with other tools in your pencil case unless you don't mind paints chips spreading all over the place.
2-minute product demo. While the Markette's bullet tips are really quite sturdy for speed sketching, their ink supply seems to have dried a bit during two years of storage sealed in a Ziploc bag. Thus the pens tend to streak when drawing at higher speeds. Their solvent smell, probably xylene, is rather strong making them only suitable for outdoor events or a really well-ventilated room. Since they are so hard to find, they are more of an oddity than a tool that I would recommend. Guess I should use them in upcoming events or classes before they dry up completely. Yet when working on a 8.5" X 11" scale, the Markette's line weight might be a tad too thick. Regular readers might already know that my top choice of pens for cartooning events are usually the 0.6 mm and 1.0 mm pigment pens form the Sakura Pigma Sensei Manga Drawing Set.

Playing a bit with a Maimeri Blu 12 half pan watercolor set

Being neglecting my watercolor sets lately, so took out the Maimeri Blu 12 half pan watercolor set for some coloring tests on card stock photocopies and a few sketchbooks.
The paints looked brighter and dried more evenly on the off-white paper of the Exacompta sketchbook. The paint tended to sit on top of the white card stock longer and dried unevenly with a blotchy appearance.
Coloring test on Georgia Pacific white card stock.
Test doodle on Cachet watercolor book. Mostly trying them side by side with my latest pair of Daniel Smith watercolor sticks to see if there was any noticeable difference in their handling. The latter just seem to brush and spread more easily.
Test doodle on Hand Book Artist Journal.
Waterproof coloring outline drawn with Liquitex acrylic ink.
Coloring test on Maruman Art Spiral sketchbook.
The Maimeri Blu half pans tended to dissolve into fairly thick opaque paint puddles that looked and behaved more like gouache. Still got to keep experimenting with it, but so far the Daniel Smith watercolor sticks seemed to dissolve faster and brush more easily into even washes by comparison.

Sakura Pigma Graphic 3 Pen Drawing Set first doodle tests

Since you can never have enough pigment liner pens, I picked this Sakura Pigma Graphic 3 Pen Drawing Set when I spotted it on clearance at the local Jo-Ann store.
This set of micro pigmented pens was made in Japan.
Sample marks drawn on Strathmore 300 smooth bristol.
Quick cartoon portrait drawn on Rhodia dotPad and lightly colored with a couple of gray Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush Artist pens. The basic outline was drawn with the 1.0 mm bullet tip pen, and the 2.0 & 3.0 mm chisel tip pens were used increase the line weight of the shadow areas. Since the Sakura Pigma inks were not allowed to dry completely before applying the Pitt inks there was some minor bleeding from the deep black inks into the lighter gray areas. So far I find the Sakura Pigma Graphic pens quite fun to use, and their pigmented waterproof inks would work well with watercolors so long as they are allowed to dry completely before applying the color washes. Worth trying.

Tombow Mono-R Ippo pencils and Tombow Mono Zero 2.3 mm precision eraser initial impression

My latest order from Jet Pens arrived today: a nice plastic case with 12 Tombow Mono-R Ippo 2B pencils and a Tombow Mono Zero round ultra-fine 2.3 mm elastomer eraser with some refills.
Since the Tombow Ippo hexagonal pencils are meant for school children, one of its sides is painted white across its entire lenght for easy labeling.
The Mono Zero eraser refills are packed two per tube and are just 2" long with a 2.5" clear plastic plunger attached to them. Each push of the button advances the stick eraser in 0.7 increments. This eraser should naturally be reserved for very specific instances like correcting small areas or making delicate adjustments on complex graphite illustrations, for it would be wasteful to use this precision tool on regular jobs that can already be handled with a conventional block eraser.
The Tombow round 2.3 mm ultra fine precision eraser is clearly designed to work well in tight spots, and it did a fair job of clearing a good amount of graphite out of the 2B test swatch.
The Tombow Mono-R Ippo 2B pencil writes and draws smoothly leaving rich dark marks that are quite smudge-resistant on this Rhodia dotPad. The boxed set of 12 pencils would certainly make a fine present for a kid or artist in your list.

Daniel Smith Extrafine Watercolor Sticks Indanthrone Blue & New Gamboge initial tests

Just got these last two watercolor sticks on the two-for-the price-of-one deal at Daniel Smith: Indanthrone Blue & New Gamboge. Time for some testing.
Using the watercolor sticks dry like crayons and making marks on a Hand Book Artist Journal. In this state they feel rather scratchy and leave fairly faint marks.
Blending the dry marks with a water loaded brush. Upon contact with water, the once faint marks quickly and effortlessly become smooth bright washes that can be further adjusted with subsequent wash layers or by applying the wet sticks to the paper directly.
A few glazing brush strokes on Clairefontaine Watercolor book.
Test marks done by using the watercolor sticks as pans and by applying the wet stick directly to the paper.
Using the moistened New Gamboge stick to color the belly and ear fins of a dragon outline drawn with Holbein special black ink.
Preparing coloring washes by spraying some water on a porcelain dish and swirling the stick in it. The longer the stick is swirled on the plate the stronger the hue of the wash becomes.
Coloring with a #6 Escoda 1212 Kolinsky round brush over the waterproof sketch.
Applying a few spots of richer hue with the moistened Indanthrone Blue stick.
These Daniel Smith watercolor sticks readily dissolved in water creating easy to use bright washes that could easily be intensified by simply swirling the stick in the pre-moistened porcelain plate longer. Worth adding to your sketching kit as convenient coloring tools though they wouldn't be my first choice for drawing given their scratchy feel (that's what watercolor crayons like Caran D'Ache Neocolor II and the Faber Castell aquarelle sticks might be better suited for).

Rhodia dotPad Sketching tests review

A recent e-mail from Stephanie made me realize I had overlooked doing further sketching tests on the Rhodia dotPad that Karen Doherty from Exaclair graciously sent along with the Creapen that was reviewed a while back. My first impression was that the "Rhodia dotPad paper is a smooth support with a signature unobtrusive dot matrix to help guide placement of type and graphic elements within each page with minimal see-through the back of the page" still holds. Thus time to see how it handled some of my favorite sketching tools: Used some Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens to color this Creapen sketch. The brush nibs glided smoothly on this paper. Their water-based pigmented inks look nice and bright, and their application did not disturb at all the outline drawn with the Creapen (so yes the ink from the Creapen cartridges is waterproof once dry).The 80 g paper is thin enough that you can see the image when held against the light. Yet there is minimum see-through the back of the page, so both sides of each sheet could be used if you felt so inclined.The paper also accepted graphite well. Sketching with my trusty 0.5 mm Pentel Graph 1000 drafting pencil loaded with a B lead was smooth and effortless. Some lightweight papers might feel scratchy and tend to snag and rip with the fine tip of mechanical pencils, but that is not an issue with this paper.Doodle drawn with a 3.15 mm Lamy Scribble loaded with a 4B lead.Writing and test doodles drawn with a variety of fine point technical pens: the Staedtler Mars Professional Technical pen with disposable cartridges (0.25 mm, 0.35 mm, 0.5 mm, & 0.7 mm), the Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen with a XS extra superfine nib (0.1 mm according to the back of a Pitt carded set I spotted at the store, but it doesn't look that fine on paper to me), and a 0.25 mm Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph. Only the latter felt scratchy on the dotPad paper, but the 0.25 mm Rapidograph always seems to feel that way on every test surface that I have ever tried it. Thus the majority of these fine point pens worked well on this paper.This final color doodle sample was drawn with Copic Multiliner SP pens with brush and 0.3 mm nibs and colored with Pitt Artist Pens. The pale violet dots with 5 mm interval provide pretty effective guidelines for more technical drawings and architectural renderings, yet they are unobtrusive enough for general sketching. Thus the dotPAd works nicely as a drawing tablet with a bit of optional reference guidelines for writing in a straight line should they be needed. Good choice if you find the classic grid lines too distracting.

Holbein Special Opaque Black Drawing Ink first impression

Really liked the plastic cylinder case used to protect the bottle of Holbein Special Opaque Black Drawing Ink. I would imagine that this sleek packaging might also help cut down on solvent evaporation while in storage.
Broad base for stability and precision dropper for dispensing ink neatly with ease.
The bottom of the ink bottle cleverly fits over the square peg inside its plastic cylinder case, so the bottle stays firmly in place without rotating inside it.
The bottle label cautions against storing or working with this ink near a flame or heat source since it is combustible. Its alcohol smell reminds me of Copic inks, so its solvent might be also alcohol-based.
Sample doodle drawn with a Pentel Neo-Sable No. 6 synthetic round brush on white card stock. Had originally intended to use a Winsor & Newton Series 7 No. 2 Kolinsky round sable brush, but I feared that this ink's solvent might dry up the natural hairs prematurely.
Some test mark making with a Winsor & Newton Sceptre Gold No. 4 round blended brush. Some lines might take a tad longer to dry up if applied too heavily with the side of the brush.
This acrylic-based ink flowed fairly smoothly on Canson bristol paper, but it dried rather quickly in the small bowl. Will try diluting it with water or even Copic solvent to see if I can make it last longer before it dries up. The dried film required a bit more scrubbing in order to wash off completely from the porcelain plate.

Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens re-supply

Almost the full range of both sizes of Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens. After noticing several new additions to this product range. I simply had to expand my sets with the new colors available. Just missing a couple that were out of stock in one size or the other, but the full color palette is represented by at least one of them in this grouping.
You can never have enough intense reds in your palette. They always seem to be among the first to get used up in my color sets.
The original size Pitt Artist pens are made in Germany and the Big Brush pens are made in Peru. I was quite pleased when I noticed that these new pens now feature the full name of its color and Faber Castell index number on the side of the barrel which makes them easier to identify while working and for when you need to order a replacement pen. The earlier batches of Pitt Artist pens only featured their numeric code next to their UPC barcodes.
Warm up doodle tests.
Used both the set of cool grays and the set of warm grays to draw my favorite subject.
Couple of test sketches on letter size sheets of white card stock.