Ask Ali: Looking after your Posca pens
I LOVE a Posca pen. Just in case you have only just stumbled across my work or haven’t seen me use them before, let me explain what they are and how I incorporate them into my paintings. Posca is a brand name for a water-based acrylic pen marker that goes on to pretty much as surface including, fabric, metal, glass, stone, leather and paper and when it dries it becomes waterproof, making it a wonderful tool in a mixed media artist’s arsenal.
There are other brands out there too, and I have many varieties but in my opinion, Posca is the best quality and can be used for any application you can think of, I use them mostly for detail work at the end of a project and while they are wet, you can blend them with a damp brush into the surrounding textures.
I don’t find them difficult to look after but some people do, so I thought I would pass on a few handy hints to help those of you who are struggling:
If you can, try to keep them either in a pot with the nib upright or horizontally in a case. Storing them with the nib down doesn’t always do them the most favours as they might flood.
Shake them every time you want to use them. They are a valve marker which means you need to pump the nib up and down to get them flowing but you probably won’t need to repeat this action after having first started them, what they don’t like is not being shaken as the pigment in the barrel will have settled so shake, shake and shake it some more.
With the cap on or it will get decorative very quickly!Keep the nib clean. If you think about it, the liquid dries waterproof, so allowing old pigment to build up there isn’t ideal. I like to use my finger to wipe the nib but a dap (not wet) piece of tissue will also do a great job.
Posca pen nibs can be replaced if you think it is damaged or isn’t working how you would like it to, just Google “Posca pen nibs’ and you are sure to find what you are looking for, although my pen has always run out of ink long before I have damaged the nib but then I’m not using it on an abrasive surface.
Posca has an awesome website with lots of interesting information including a handy colour chart which you can find HERE, plus give yourself a bit of time to go through their gallery and very smart tutorials to inspire you.
Do you use them? Do you have an alternative brand you could recommend? What’s your favourite nib size? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Until next week, Ali