Mixed Media Art Journal Cover & Design Team News

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If you've been following my blog for a while, you might remember that in 2011 I was commissioned by Kuretake UK Ltd to create a massive zendoodle and 6 postcards using their ZIG Millennium pens. They subsequently used these pieces to demonstrate their products at 2 major trade shows in Germany and USA.

I heard from Kuretake again recently, and I'm happy to say I have now joined their UK design team. They kindly sent me some of their pens and I've been having a play with them.  Now, I will admit that I have only ever used hard-tipped fineliners, and only for zendoodling, and text in my art journalling. So when I received the ZIG Art & Graphic Twins (fine bullet & brush tips), the ZIG Kurecolor KC3000 Twins (fine & chisel tips) and the ZIG Cartoonist Kurecolor Twins (fine & brush tips), I knew it was going to give me a big hard shove out of my comfort zone, because even the fine tips are thicker than what I'm used to.

Easily the best thing I have come up with so far has been the cover of a Basically Bare Timeless Tabs Booklet (also from Kuretake)

Products used:

• Liquitex gesso, black Stazon inkpad, clear Kaisercraft script stamp, tissue paper, Decopatch glue & varnish.
• ZIG Cartoonist Kurecolor Twins (Persian Green #334, Light Carmine #204, Black #900, Cadmium Red # 217) 
• ZIG Kurecolor KC3000 Twins (Carmine Red #208, Light Green #504, Persian Blue #315, Bright Yellow # 404)
• ZIG Art & Graphic Twins (Black #900)
• ZIG Waterbrush H2O in medium brush
• Small wooden heart, old book pages, paper, brayer, acrylic paints (turquoise, dark blue), white Sakura Gelly Roll pen.

I would show you the other things I've been doing with these lovely Kuretake pens, but, frankly, those other things turned out embarrassingly bad! The thing is, when you've never (EVER) used brush pens before, they can be a bit tricky to master. But I will continue to practise with them, and of course, when I've got something worthy of showing off, you will be the first to know!

Meanwhile, I am really pleased with the journal cover.  I freely admit I am obsessed with hearts (my house is full of them!) and I also really like to hand-draw different styles of lettering.  I like the way the ridges in the tissue paper and the cardboard cover have been picked up by the acrylic paints, and I think the Persian Green Cartoonist ink around the edges is a beautiful colour that ties everything in nicely.

Many thanks to Natasha at Kuretake for all her help :-)