Bienfang Young Artist marker pad

Prelude

I have compared 45 different papers for markers. I have not included any papers that are not specified for markers by the company that produce them. It is not uncommon that an art store will market a paper as a marker-paper but if you look at the brands homepage they are not label as a marker paper. But with that said, a lot of other kinds of paper can work very well with markers, for example watercolor paper (even though they will “eat” the ink in the marker a lot faster than any other paper). I also tried some Japanese sumi-e paper with good and interesting result.  I might write more about that in the future. For now, this is a marker paper review.

The theory and method for thinner marker paper (70-80 g/m²)

I started with some small samples to se color saturation and value, bleeding and feathering.

I am a firm believer in working the paper as you normally would, to be able to fully understand the potential the paper has, so I decided to do a drawing on every paper.

I especially wanted to test the blending and layering abilities. With blending I mean that I work wheat in wheat, and with layering I let the ink dry before I put another layer on top.

Before I started my drawing I wrote down the name of the brand on the paper. I then covered the name so I wouldn't se which paper I was working on. I wanted it to be a blind test.

I have earlier tried to do the exact same drawing but found that this only works if you compare two or three of them. When you compare many items (as I have done earlier; I compared 29 markers, and now I compare a lot of papers) the chances are huge that the first couples of drawings are a less good than the following (because you are learning) and the last ones are pretty bad because it get so monotonous that it is very difficult to do a good job. At least that is true for me. I therefore chose to draw every drawing different but in the same manner and use the same subject (in this case, one girl stood model for all drawings). I also chose to use the same colors for the face and hair on every drawing.

Bienfang young artists

Bienfang young artists marker pad        75 g/m²                     

An acid free paper from Canada, especially designed for young artists. It is availably in 23 cm x 31 cm (9” x 12”) pad.

The paper is smooth and white. The backside feels and reacts the same to ink as the front side.

This paper is one of the worst ones. It bleeds through to the next page a lot, which is of course not a huge problem. However, it did something no other paper has done – the ink became dappled. Just look at the face. It is very uneven. The colors look dull and a bit darker compared to other papers. The colors also bleed into each other.

Conclusion: This is a very poor paper. Is it good enough for a kid? In my opinion, if you get some decent quality early in life you might find drawing much more fun.

Sketch done on Bienfang paper

                       

Color samples on Bienfang paper