Mixed-medium projects are totally my jam. They’re creative, pleasantly unpredictable, and give you lots of opportunities to test out different materials.
Some of my favorite art mediums are Sakura fineliner pens and watercolors, but are they a compatible duo? Or do Micron pens bleed with watercolor? Also, can you watercolor over Micron pens?
Keep reading to find out; I’ll walk you through the good news in this handy tutorial.
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Do Micron pens bleed with watercolor?
Generally speaking, Micron pens do not bleed with watercolor, making them an excellent match for mixed-medium watercolor art.
Micron pens contain quick-drying, waterproof ink, which makes them perfect (and convenient!) for incorporating detail and structure into more abstract watercolor washes.
The cool part is that there are a lot of creative hobbies you can explore by combining both mediums, from botanical art and map illustration to fashion sketching, card making, and so much more.
If you want to learn a bit more about combining watercolors and Micron pens, grab a watercolor set and some fineliner pens and follow along with testing below!
Can you use Micron pens over watercolor?
Although best known as a must-have for technical sketching and bold linework, yes — Micron pens work over watercolor.
But will ink stay fully intact with applied on wet, diluted paint, or do Micron pens bleed with watercolor?
Here’s what you need to know.
When using Micron pens over watercolors, I advise waiting until the paint is somewhat dry to the touch for best results.
However, you can draw/write on moist paint, but your pen won’t perform as smoothly.
Rather than bleeding, you’ll find that Micron ink will simply not activate (or will take time to) if it detects too wet of a surface.
Note: if your pens won’t write at all, here’s how to revive dried Micron pens and how to refill empty Micron pens.
Personally, I prefer to wait a few seconds to put down lines to ensure they come out slick and bold. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Here’s a simple demonstration.
In the example above, I used light green watercolors to draw a leaf. Once completed, I let the fresh paint sit for a few seconds (under a minute).
Note that I used watercolor paper for this sample. Any watercolor sketchbook or watercolor block will do the trick.
Next, I used one of my medium-nib Micron pens to doodle some accents onto the recently painted leaf.
There were no signs of bleeding, nor did I feel like the pen’s ink was “blocked” by any moisture on the page.
On the other hand, it’s important to point out that the performance of your pens will also depend on how much watery paint you put down.
To test this, I put down a heavier layer of watercolor to see how Micron pens would react when applied over a denser wash (see image above)
After a minute (give or take), I wrote over the light blue wash with my medium-tip Micron pen — and the outcome was seamless and bleed-free!
Because the paint was still slightly wet, it took a few seconds to get the pen’s ink flowing, but after that, I was good to go.
I even packed on multiple layers of ink to see if it would eventually bleed: but it didn’t.
Always remember that this isn’t 100% set in stone. But from my experience with this method so far, bleeding has been practically non-existent.
So, do Micron pens bleed with watercolor? Aside from rare exceptions, Micron pens do not bleed when applied over watercolors.
But how about vice versa? Can you watercolor over Micron pens?
Here are my two cents.
Can you watercolor over Micron pens?
Yes, you can watercolor over Micron pen ink.
But will this make Micron ink bleed?
Well, this depends.
While mostly flawless, Micron pens can bleed a little if you slap on watery bristles immediately after sketching.
To test this out, I added a few simple lines to my lavender stems on a piece of watercolor paper (see image above).
Next, I primed my paintbrush with a new layer of light green and went over the lines.
There was no bleeding or smudging of the pen lines, nor did the ink lose its boldness; it didn’t dilute when it came into contact with water.
Quick note: It’s always more effective to apply light paint colors over Micron ink to guarantee lines pop.
I was also curious to know what would happen when applying an especially wet brush over Micron pen ink.
To test this, I created a little cluster of deep black dots with a thicker Micron nib (see image above).
Then, used a water brush pen to work in some color.
In this case, the Micron pen ink did bleed slightly, but still remained surprisingly intact. I mean, considering the amount of water applied, this wasn’t bad at all!
Bleeding was minimal, and although my yellow paint did get slightly tinted, it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be edited once the section fully dried.
Lastly, I applied watercolors over written text to see if it would bleed or make lines look wonky.
I used the same color paint and density as in the similar example mentioned further above.
This worked really well with no bleeding. The paint looked great over these lines, especially when the section fully dried up. This is a great technique for card-making!
So, in conclusion: Can you watercolor over Micron pens?
Yes!
Just take drying time and the amount of moisture into account to avoid potential bleeding, although this is not a given every time.
That’s it for this tutorial on whether Micron pens bleed with watercolor! Feel free to drop questions or suggestions in the comments below.
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