Alcohol Marker Papers

Tonite I'm in Milwaukee doing a free event, tomorrow I'm doing Copic Certification, then Chicago and CHA starting Wednesday. Whoo Hoo! This is a busy, crafty week. I may be a little short on posts this week since I'm so busy, but bear with me.

We've talked about the best matte cardstock and heavy papers for using with Copics, but what about all the other papers out there? Aren't there special marker papers made just for using with markers? Yes. There are many types, but these react very differently than the steps I stated earlier for testing good papers. These are probably not the best for papercrafters, but are good for professional designers, architects, car designers, etc.

Marker Papers are usually thin, very smooth, coated papers that have little or no bleed through when used with alcohol markers. What this means is that ink is floating on the surface, unlike matte cardstock where we want the ink to soak the whole paper and we use slow, even, saturating techniques. Marker papers use a lot less ink, and a few quick, smooth strokes will evenly color an area. If you start heavily layering colors onto marker paper it really has no-where to go, so it streaks and pools. It really looks bad, so with marker paper, less is more. It's kinda hard to see in the photo, but the colors show up different as well.

When working on a coated Marker Paper remember that your ink lines need to dry very throughly BEFORE you color over them. Since marker papers are coated the ink has less to soak into and will get picked up and smeared around much easier. See the bottom small green circle- it smeared. I also tried to fix the mistakes where it was colored out of the line and it just doesn't work as well.

The special effects I have shown with the colorless blender do NOT work the same on coated marker papers, in fact, many of them don't work at all, so be aware. See how subtle the bricks are on the marker paper compared to the other cardstock. The colors in the top circle don't want to blend as well either.

Marker papers also tend to be thin- thin enough to trace through, yet they prevent bleeding onto the page beneath. Designers love these papers because they can trace their artwork and still do a rendering while referring to their original sketch.

Some common types of coated marker papers are the Copic Alcohol Marker Pad, which was designed by the Germans for professional design, Bienfang Graphics 360, Pro Art Marker Paper (most fine-art paper companies make their own version of Marker Paper), and the Copic PM Pad which has a slightly rougher surface so you can use chalk pastels with your completed marker rendering (Pastel/Marker Pad). Here is a list of some of the different marker papers available.

Notes:
• Copic Sketchbooks are a cardstock, not a coated marker paper, therefore they will bleed.

• Manga Illustration Paper comes in two types, Natural White, which is a matte cardstock and Pure White, which is a bleedproof marker paper. Don't confuse the two!

Image: Hole punch I drew a few years ago on PM paper. Notice how streaky the shadow is- I couldn't blend it out like I usually do on cardstock or non-coated papers.