Prelude
I have compared 45 different papers for markers. I have not
included 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 thicker marker paper
I started with some small samples to se color saturation and
value, bleeding and feathering. On thicker paper it is common to se colors
becoming milky as well.
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 30 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.
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| Goldline Bristol Board |
Goldline bristol board 220
g/m2
Goldline bristol
board are availably in A4 and A3 pad.
It is a smooth
(but not very smooth) paper that are white white a slight greyish tone.
On all of
the thicker paper that I have tried, markers behave differently than on the
thinner marker paper. Even if all markers change in value on all kinds of
paper, the problem is more obvious on thicker paper. The value changes are more
than just one degree. Vibrant colors usually stay true, but darker colors can
loose a lot. This is true for Goldline Bristol board as well, but maybe the
darker is a bit better then most thicker paper. Vibrant colors look great. Some
colors can become very milky especially when layer the ink a lot. The colors
also look a bit grainy. Lighter colors
on top of dark colors will almost erase the dark colors. This makes it
difficult to go from dark to light (if that is how you prefer to layer colors)
but can be handy if you regret the color choice.
Conclusion:
I don’t like this paper, but I have worked on worse paper.
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| Drawing made on Goldline |
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| Color samples on Goldline |
