Washable Markers; A Painting Beginner's Delight!

Washable Markers; A Painting Beginner's Delight!

Many of us have these little devils running about the premises of our homes, whether a few are puttering about in our desk drawer or in our child's old toy chest they haven't touched since you have given them that regrettable cell phone and/or ipod, you are bound to have a few someplace and I must say these little fellas are very useful. I'm not going to get in to everything about them, and believe me I can do one if not two more posts about washable markers but I will stick to the subject at hand...How they can be a painter's delight!

Main idea:

Washable markers like Crayola ™ are not water resistant thus making them the perfect watercolor paint alternative when you can't afford paints or you don't want to buy paints but want to experiment w/o the coast of buying then feeling it's not for you and wasting your hard earned money. With everything there is a process to making these useable as paints, I'll get in to the usefulness of using washable markers in a painting in fuller detail later, at the moment, lets just focus on making the paint for now.

How To Make Paint:

Materials you'll need:

• Washable markers – I use Crayola ™ and RoseArt ™ personally but whatever you like, Prang ™ is another nice option.
• An Egg carton (Not the cardboard kind) or anything that is a sealed container that doesn't absorb water.
• Water – I always use normal temperature water I have never waited for it to be cold or hot so I cannot say if it makes a difference.
• Paint brush – The none plastic ones are best in my opinion but everybody has a different liking.

To make a paint with washable markers you need something that is sealed and smooth that won't absorb the wetness of the marker ink or water, I use an empty egg carton (white is the best, but you can do it with any one of them – NOT cardboard) a little bit of water and that's it and the process is reasonable easy.

Note: If you use an egg carton inspect the bottom and the sides of the sections, I have had problems with some egg cartons having two holes on the bottom-side of some of the individual egg holding areas, they are hardly noticeable but it will make your paint leak out so make sure they're not punctured! 
 

Step One:

Get your egg carton (or whatever you are using to hold and make the paint inside of) after making sure you don't have any punctured holes and place it before yourself; now select what markers you want to make a paint color, then draw on the insides of an egg carton section doing you best to cover the inside. - Make sure you cover the bottom the most but hit the “walls” too. (Full coverage isn't possible on a washable marker to a smooth  surface) 

Step Two:

Get a small bit of water, very small, maybe a teaspoon worth at most and add it to your egg carton; then get your paint brush and mix the water with the marker –When making the paint make sure that when you are using the paintbrush that you scrape the brush part on the side making the excess color come out back in to the paint, often times the brush soaks up the color and leaves the water behind because it touches the pigment/ink separate from the water. 

Step Three:

Test and see if it came out as a watercolor that you like, if you don't draw on the sides a bit without touching the water then get your paintbrush and take the “paint” we have made and brush the marker off the sides of the egg carton (or whatever container you chose to use) and mix it with the pre-made paint. - By now it should be like dyed water, if it's too much water it just looks like tinted water not flat out dyed water.

By now you should have paint, so I say you're done! The hardest part would probably be finding the right amount of water that doesn't make the paint so thin you hardly see it.

Pros and Cons:

Cons:

• Lighter colors will be harder because if they are already harder to see on paper watered down to paint them will be worse, but if you are good with color theory then you might be able to make the color you want by combining darker colors to equal the original color you wanted.

• If you run out of the color to remake unless you make a log can be difficult but if you like this process then maybe it's not so bad.

Pros:

• If you use markers like the markers in a 50 pack of Crayola ™ you have all those colors plus the colors you can get combining 2 or more markers together so you really have at least 100 colors to choose from, this is very good for a young child to start out without you having to buy paints that if they don't like the activity forget about and become no longer in use for many years until you sell them in a yard sale or revisit the activity yourself.

• This is essentially free, unless you are buying the markers for this purpose you most likely already had them so though you did pay at one point you've had them so long it feels free.

I know these work on printer paper, watercolor paper I haven't made any artworks using self made paints on watercolor paper but I have used markers and painted water over them and it worked just fine.

I am in no way comparing this to paints like Sakura Brand watercolor paints, but these are very nice for children or people just starting out no matter the age!

Conclusion:

Making simple paints isn't so hard and very affordable! I hope that this has given you a jump start in your painting endeavors. I will post at a later date different painting techniques for using washable markers. If you can't seem to get this to work feel free to post a question I'll answer the best I know how, but if I don't know I'll be honest with you and say I don't know.

Until we meet again...!

May God bless you, your family, friends, your health and the health of all that know you. - Amen

~ Firefly