souffle pens

I get asked a lot about my souffle pens, so I decided to do a quick post about them.

The pens are a type of gel pen that are done by Sakura. Sakura makes three types of gell pen (that I know of) Gelly Roll, Glaze and Souffle. I have a mixture of pens because once I realised I liked them I just bought anything I could get my hands on.

What is neat about them is the brilliant rolling end that allows the ink to just flow out magnificently. It makes them brilliant to use in mixed media artwork because they just roll over the top of the different surfaces you have laid down and just keep flowing. The colours are wonderful as well, and they really pop out when you get them on the right background colour.

They do have drawbacks, but they are so cool that I don't mind them. Because they roll you have to slow down your writing to let it flow out smoothly, the slower you go, the thicker the line. You also have to wait for it to dry properly, because it is a bead of liquid. Many times I have gone to work on something else on my page while my souffle pen dried, and I looked back to discover that I unknowingly ran my hand through the paint and it is now smudged. You also have to get used to which colours you can use over which background colours. Some colours will just disappear into other colours, but if you choose the right combination they will sing on the page and nearly poke your eye out!

Here are all the blog posts I have done that reference souffle pens:

http://mixedmediamartyr.blogspot.com/search/label/souffle%20pen

Kelly Kilmer is a pen guru in the art journaling world and here is a link to her favourite pens:

http://kellykilmer.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-pen-list.html

Well, I hope that this has helped all you out there in blog and Flickr land. It was a post I should have done ages ago, because I love these pens so much.

tattoo

This is a mixed media collage on a journal page. The prompt was "tattoo" and it came from the Yahoo Group I belong to "Blissfully Art Journaling"

Of course if I ever was to get angel's wings tattooed on me, they would be much, much smaller than this, but I like to dream of a different me sometimes.

The method was scrapbooking papers painted over with black and white gesso. Computer printed image and title. Roses are magazine images. Stamped with black ink and white gesso. Decorated and written with white souffle pen.

Lighthouse

Aaaaaah! I'm still in a good mood from having finished an Illustration Friday drawing! Now to keep the momentum going! This is a journal page with an excerpt from Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse." Unfortunately I can't claim to have read this book. I found the quote (as well as a couple of others from the same book) and comments on the story line, and now I have to say that I want to read it. I have some others on the go and in line at the moment ("The Artist's Way" "Novel About My Wife" "At The Sign Of The Sugared Plum" and "Petals In The Ashes"), but I think I will see if there are any Virginia Woolf books in the library next.

The method for this page was colouring the page with watersoluble crayons first then washing them with water. Once dried I collaged on the images of the lighthouse, the boats and the woman.

Next I washed a layer of dark paint over the top. I had planned to use Payne's Grey because I love it so, but I discovered that the lid had been broken and my tube had dried up. Because that is what I had envisioned, I made up my own version of Payne's Grey with Mars Black, Phthalo Green and Phthalo Blue. It seemed to do the trick. I masked the portion where the beam of light shone and painted over the entire page (except the woman.) I rubbed the paint off a few times with absorbent towels.

Then I attached the bird image and wrote the text with souffle pen, and added embellishments with sharpie and souffle pen.

illustration friday "sugary"

Yes!! I'm back! I managed to get an Illustration Friday drawing done before the week had finished! I have had lots of ideas for the other weeks, but never got the chance to do them. Well this time I got my brain thinking hard straight away and I did it!

This is done on a new brown paper journal that I bought from a local bookshop. I loved the brown paper, and I thought that it would be something different to draw on (if the mood struck me to draw on something different!) (and it did!)

The process is just pencil on brown paper, acrylic paint, and souffle pen for the colour on the lollipop.

Angel

I just adore angels! This angel is a photo I took of a memorial statue at a cemetery. I posterized the image and superimposed it on the image of the wall of a room being renovated. I printed the image out and then collaged it in my journal with snippets of sheet music and old dictionary pages. The colour around the edges is watercolour crayons, the circles are souffle pen and the dotted lines are acrylic paint.

Enjoy this image! I will post some of my angel photos on another day. You are bound to see many more angel images in the future. They are just heavenly. Compassion personified.

For Sleep or Death

I was trying to portray a more solemn feeling with this page. I haven't got the hang of the collaging the way I would like to at the moment, but instead I just went with my flow to see what would result. The poem by Ruth Pitter gave the feeling that I wanted and the collaged images underneath are pages from a vintage children's book about life for Victorian children. The woman is from a Dover Clipart book. I drew the line of washing and the hooded figure. The colour was a dilute wash of muddy green acrylic to start with then coloured pencils and coloured graphite on top. The words and the poetry were written with souffle pen and I went around the words of the poem again with coloured pencil.

It's not dramatic like other people's journal pages, but it contains the more sombre elements I wanted, and that is good enough for me!!

journal of mine

This is another first page in a journal. The other journal is more for memories and this journal will be more for everyday thoughts and feelings and observations. Sometimes a bit of fun, and sometimes a bit serious, I guess.

I had loads of fun doing this page. Because it didn't really have to say anything I just doodled and doodled till it was full!

Procedure was page inked first with green ink pad (idea from Ricë Freeman-Zachery http://voodoonotes.blogspot.com/2008/09/part-ii-art-journal-page-backgrounds.html). Then I glued scrapbooking page patterns around the edge (idea from Suzan Buckner http://thriftycollageartist.blogspot.com/2008/02/step-by-step-instructions-to-jouranl.html). Then I collaged magazine images (the altered diva is Kylie Minogue with a serious makeover!!). Then added rubber stamp images. And finally doodled with sharpies, coloured pencils and souffle pens.

Bright and bold and brassy!!!

Finished a new journal page, first page of the journal chronologically. It had the gorgeous picture of the bunny on it that I had to keep intact! She is rushing away in such a determined manner - I just love her.

Credits for this page are due! I followed Ricë Freeman-Zachery's suggestion to use a photocopied image of myself on the page http://voodoonotes.blogspot.com/2008/09/part-ii-art-journal-page-backgrounds.html . Have decided to get my son to take a pile of photographs of me with all different expressions, which I will print a pile of each of them out all ready to go. Then I will just pick the expression I want for the page I am doing at the time! Thanks Ricë!

The other credit is to Suzan Buckner and her suggestions on how to create a journal page with colour and collage http://thriftycollageartist.blogspot.com/2008/02/step-by-step-instructions-to-jouranl.html . It helped me look at the edges of the page as a frame for the writing in the middle, encouraged me to go for bright colours, and made me try highlighters. Thanks Suzan!

The process was: collaged pages of penpal letters and vintage book page, acrylic paint washes, stickers, highlighter, gel pen, felt pens, soffle pens. I just kept going till I felt it looked balanced enough. The felt pen writing is a bit heavy, that's because I need to go and buy some sharpies. This was the only felt pen I had in the house that would write over the underlayers. Hoping to buy some today!

Very bright colours, and busy, but I like it!

Dance

This is a page in the art journal I have started. The photo is of me in my teenage dancing days. The process was glued in a vintage ballet book page, painted over acrylic paints with a brayer, fixed on photo printed on transparency, freehand lettering done in souffle pen.

I can't believe I actually finished a page!!! Mind you I haven't journalled on it yet. Maybe tomorrow!