Winsor & newton Pigment marker

The pigment marker really woke my interest with the unique lightfastness and the two blender alternative that are available. It is brilliant to have a normal colorless blender AND a white blender. This open up endless color possibilities. 

The Winsor & Newton white blender and colorless blender

Also, the design of the marker and the the design of the case for the marker are stunning.

These markers are nothing like alcohol markers, or water based markers for that matter. They are so much more like paint in the way that you actually can blend two or more colors to a totally new one with ease. 

When used on other papers than the Winsor and Newton marker paper, they will not work the same. They can feel dry, but I will come back to this. On the Winsor and Newton paper however, they work very well in that sense that they are very easy to blend with either of the blender alternatives or with each other. The big problem with these markers is that they are very difficult to control since they never really dry on the paper. Everything that you draw will move when you come to close. Anything to complex are very difficult to draw, but a sketchy drawing work very well. One of the problems is that It is very difficult to do larger areas without streakiness (something a marker user will straggle with). The ink quickly become very uneven, grainy and details are very difficult to do.

It is difficult to get a smooth even layer

In a way, you can work over an area over and over since the color doesn’t really dry, this makes the marker unique, but also a part of the reason that the markers are so difficult to control. Also, if you work a lot with the markers, all papers I have tried the pigment markers on have buckled after a while and this includes Winsor and Newton’s own paper.

As always, it is a question of what you want to use an art material for. I will not use these for finished complex art work (which I hoped to do, since they are lightfast), but for a layout and sketches these markers a fine. I have tried the Pigment marker on different papers and however they loose the uniqueness that they have on the paper meant for them, and they can feel very dry on most papers, I prefer that to the uncontrolled feeling on the Winsor and Newton paper.  Because, if you don´t try to use them as a “paint” where you actually blend the colors together, they can be used on a lot of different papers. Just don´t try to fill a large area or do to much details.

Pigment markers 

Something strange, but maybe not necessarily bad, is that the color looks much lighter when it is used from the bullet nib. When you use the chisel nib the colors are as the chart shows below, but with the bullet nib you get a fairer color. 

Another problem I found with my markers are that a lot of them are leaking. Suddenly a large ink bubble will appear. This happen with too many and too often not to mention.

The case for the 36 set of the Pigment markers

A color chart for the Pigment markers