Head to Head: Blending Cardstocks- Cryogen versus X-Press It

Nobody rides a bicycle on the beach...

Bikes are great; you can go a lot of places on a bicycle.

But if you're sunning your buns at one end of the beach and the daiquiri bar is way the heck down at the other end... it's highly unlikely that you're going to use peddle power to cross a mile of sugar sand beach.

Bicycles don't work very well in the desert; they're not so great underwater and I'd hate to be left with only a bike during a Michigan January.

Now I'm not beating up on bikes and bicycle enthusiasts. I love my bike.

But only an idiot tries to use a bike in a snowstorm. It simply isn't designed to do what you're asking it to do.

Smart people match the tool to the task

That includes paper.

Especially when you're working with Copics and colored pencil. Trying to blend alcohol markers on a dollar store drawing pad is like trying to peddle your way down Daytona Beach.

You're not using the right tool to facilitate good blending.

Sadly, Cryogen went out of business in 2022. I’m keeping this article published as an example of what to look for in good marker paper and how to test paper on your own.

For years, I've used x-press it blending card 

Not just faithfully, I've used it exclusively. 

For my style of marker painting, it simply works best.

Ink stays wet on the surface of X-Press It paper slightly longer than with other blending cardstocks. That extra wet-time allows for better blending. I see significant improvement when I move students from their preferred paper to X-Press It.

But X-Press It has one major drawback

I combine marker with colored pencil. The combination of wet and dry gives me more depth, texture, and mark versatility than is possible with just marker alone. 

I love my X-Press It. The problem is that X-PI is everything a colored pencil paper should not be.

X-Press It is super slick with a slightly resistant surface. Way smoother than hot press, it's Bing Crosby driving a Zamboni eating butter kind of smooth.

Meanwhile colored pencil likes things gritty. Artists call it tooth; a good colored pencil paper has tiny jags and crevices which grab hold and collect pencil pigment as you color.

X-Press It cardstock is as toothless as the starting line-up for the 1972 Red Wings. Trying to color with colored pencil on X-PI is like spreading grape jelly onto a greased pig. About 70% of what you lay down ain't gonna stick.

So not to make light of Sophie's Choice, but at the start of every project, I'm usually standing at the train station trying to pick between X-Press It for Markers or Vellum Bristol for colored pencil.

Then I rediscovered Cryogen

A student once handed me some sheets of "sparkle paper" in class. I'm always up for trying a new paper, but she presented it as a marker paper, something another Copic instructor had recommended.

It was a nice cardstock, smooth with an interesting pearly flake embedded in the pulp. I made a few test swatches and no angelic chorus descended from the heavens. I decided I liked X-Press It better and filed the Cryogen away in my drawer of assorted paper.

Time passed.

I cleaned out that drawer last month and came across some unmarked sheets of cardstock. As I'm mentally berating the wheel running hamster who lives in my head for not labeling the paper... my fingers... they were feeling the paper. I was actually petting the paper.

And the hamster started dancing

He danced and sang because we were petting a marker cardstock with a bit of tooth.

Holy Grail anyone?

I've been playing with sparkle paper Cryogen recently. I'm pretty pleased.

I wouldn't say Cryogen White is the answer to ALL my problems but it does get the Nazi off my back. Here's what I've found.

X-Press It- a superior marker blending card

• Full Name: X-Press It Blending Card

• Surface: ultra hot-press, feels coated but isn't

• Color: bright white

• Weight: about 110 lbs.

• Tooth: very little

• Thirst: coats well on first pass, no excessive ink usage

• Alcohol Ink Blendability: extended wet-time makes for easy and amazing blends

• Vividness: colors are bold, no visible changes upon drying.

• Bleed (ink pulled by paper fibers beyond stamp lines): hardly noticeable

• Leak-through (to back of paper): only after 3 coats

• Water Damage: exposure to water will damage paper irreparably. Surface will buckle, then separate from core, can peel off.

• Colored Pencil: accepts a first coat with a sharp pencil. Hard to layer or blend, must press harder than normal to collect color. Color can smear.

Cryogen- a balanced all purpose cardstock

• Full Name: Cryogen Curious Metallics

• Surface: hot-press

• Color: "white" but is actually a creamy, yellow tinged white

• Weight: 89 lbs.

• Tooth: light tooth

• Thirst: coats well on first pass, draws more ink than X-Press It

• Alcohol Ink Blendability: moderate, some strokes remain visible after second pass.

• Vividness: some colors mute slightly as they dry.

• Bleed (ink pulled by paper fibers beyond stamp lines): light bleed but controllable

• Leak-through (to back of paper): after 2nd coat

• Water Damage: a light spray did not affect paper. A good soaking caused buckling and slight swelling. Swelling disappeared when dry but buckle remained. No peeling or bubbling.

• Colored Pencil: accepts 2-3 coats of colored pencil, waxy pencils blended well. Easy to color softly with no visible stroke lines.

Here's a side by side:

X-Press it on top, Cryogen on bottom. Creamy color of Cryogen is more noticeable in real life.

Overall, a move to Cryogen means that I sacrifice some marker blending ability in order to gain pencil blending ability.

• You can see some unblendable marker strokes in the blue stripes just before the tail on the Cryogen. The B37 was especially stubborn.

• B99 looks more deep and vibrant on the X-PI but it's only noticeable when side by side.

• B32 (lightest blue in the stripes) is noticeably lighter and more even on X-Press It.

• The difference in aqua colors here is solely due to the yellow of Cryogen making all colors look warmer.

• Blue pencil over yellow marker on X-PI looks muddy. Same on Cryogen looks more subtle and pleasing.

• Not only does pencil "stick" better to Cryogen, white gel pen adheres more smoothly

So am I a Cryogen Fan now?

Maybe.

I'll still teach with X-Press It because I never want to place hurdles in front of my students. Blending is so much easier with X-PI that I can't justify the switch for my beginners and casual colorers.

But for any project (personal or with advanced students) that requires more than 50% colored pencil, I'll be using Cryogen.

Yes, I want Beans!

Watercolor: Make a Peerless Watercolor Palette

My goal is to do more personal projects this year...

As a teacher, it's really easy to fall into the curriculum trap where everything you produce is either a teaching reference or a prospective lesson.

So my solution to this hole I'm sitting in is simple: get the heck out of my studio! Now that the weather's warmer, I'm forcing myself to unplug and head outdoors for some soul-building field work.

In fancy art circles, we call working out-of-doors "en plein air" which roughly translates to "you can't take your 900 pound ceramic watercolor palette with you".

Yep, if it's going to be me and my dog drawing/chasing ducks in the park, I can't exactly drag along my studio paints.

So I went shopping- a little Home Depot, a little Amazon, and a quick stop at Peerlesscolorlabs.com

Here's my new travel kit

(warning: affiliate links ahead...)

First off, I needed a bag.

I know that sounds like putting the sleigh before the horse but because I knew the palette could be any size, I figured I'd find a great carrying case and then create the perfect palette to fit.

I found this bag on Amazon. If it came in red, I'd declare it utterly perfect. The pockets are deep, it has pencil & brush storage up front, and these handy little flaps to keep your inside stuff inside.

The best part about this bag is something I didn't realize until Mr. Fed-Ex dropped it off on my doorstop- this bag has a hard board backing, sewn inside the back panel.

Once I'm on location and have emptied out my bag, the bag can lay on my lap as a mini-desk!

What's perfecter than perfect?

Oh, if only it came in red...

Next up, Peerless Watercolors!

There are lots of portable watercolor kits on the market. I do own and love my Winsor Newton watercolor makers, but I do not like juggling multiple markers in one hand while I paint with the other.

And yes, the practical part of me thought about buying a small empty travel palette. Because I use tube watercolors, it would have been very easy (and economical) to simply fill a smaller travel palette with my favorite watercolor paints.

But as I said earlier, I'm in a rut and doing the same ol' things with my same ol' stuff (only outdoors) really wasn't jingling my bells. So I ordered a 60 (they now have 80!) color set of Peerless Watercolor swatches.

Peerless swatches are little cards embedded with transparent and vibrant watercolor. They work just like the watercolor coloring books we had growing up. Simply touch a card with a wet paintbrush to rehydrate the color, then paint your project. Because the color is intense and concentrated, you don't need to carry around a big swatch.

The problem with Peerless cards is that they arrive like a deck of cards... NOT very travel friendly. I Googled up a storm to see how other crafters were storing their Peerless. Most people are using photo albums with 2-6 colors per page. With 60 colors, that means lots of page flipping and wet swatches touching each other and generally getting nasty. Oh my sweet heavens, spare me that kind of color contamination!

I also wanted a white mixing surface. I almost never use a color straight up as is.

Hello Home Depot!

This is corrugated PVC plastic. You'll find it in the same aisle as plexiglass and sheets of replacement glass for windows and picture frames. If you're not handy enough to enter the hallowed halls of Home Depot, Amazon has the same thing.

This stuff is sturdy, lightweight, and pretty inexpensive.  I paid $5.48 for a 18 x 24 inch rectangle. That was enough for one, three page travel palette (plus scraps). 

Assembly:

I've used this plastic before for other projects and it cuts very easily with a craft knife (this is the best one ever, it doesn't roll away!!!).

I cut 3 panels at 7 x 10 inches. That's large enough to hold 30 swatches on a single page and it fits very easily into the bag. I could have gone slightly larger but then the math for the swatch sizes got weird.

artist + weird math = great angst

A T-square, a large self-healing cutting mat, and a brand new knife blade make this part of the job very easy and precise.

The cut edges are not sharp but because I'll be handling this palette a lot, I wanted a more finished edge.

I ran a line of white electrical tape around all four sheets and burnished it down with a bone folder. The electrical tape may shift over time and with wear, so I'm not thrilled with this solution... but it works for now.

Plus the mitered edges makes my inner OCD patient smile.

I used my Cinch machine to bind the three panels together with .75" wire. Cinch wire cuts easily with wire nippers.

The plastic sheets are 4mm which was a smidgen too thick to fit into the Cinch but I was able to squish just the end area with a bone folder. Then each compressed sheet slid in very easily.

I bound my palette along the short edge. That's another big difference between my palette and the other tutorials out there. I wanted long and narrow so that I can clip it closer to my project. I don't want the wind catching a tall palette like a sail when I'm outdoors.

Here's where my palette starts to differ greatly from other internet tutorials.

Because I intend to mix colors and because I know the swatches will be damp when I close up my palette, I wanted space between the swatches and the mixing surface.

Even if not wet, these swatches can contaminate each other if they make contact color-to-color.

Plus, I suspect that wet swatches pressed up next to plastic means they'll dry really slowly and could grow mold or fungus over time. Ugh!

Little adhesive backed vinyl bumper feet solve this problem and insure that even when folded, the swatches never touch the middle page mixing surface.

Here's an end shot of the closed palette. The pages all have a nice air gap.

Yes, it takes a hyper-critical perfectionist weirdo to think of these things...

Yes, I want Beans!

Here's the swatch cutting process.

Each of my swatches are 1/6 of a card, adhered to a sheet of watercolor paper with Tombow tape. When a swatch wears out, I'll rip it off and replace it with a new 1/6 piece.

I left room next to each swatch for the color name and a wash sample.

I used double sided Gorilla tape (super sticky stuff) to stick the entire card to the palette. One card on the inside of the front cover, one card on the inside of the back cover. The middle sheet (with the feet) is left blank as that will be my mixing surface.

Warm colors on one page.

Cool colors on the other.  Yes, I'm missing a color. It was supposed to be 60 colors but they sent two Amethyst cards. I'm still not sure what color I'm missing...

Here is my palette at work.

For smaller projects, I can tape the watercolor paper right to the mixing page. For outdoors, I will clip the entire palette to the side of my journal.

I'm not happy with the way the paint beads up in some areas, that makes mixing harder. I'll pull out some 3000 grit sandpaper later (super fine for polishing jewelry) and rough up the surface slightly. 

Here's my travel bag loaded up with supplies.

I've got room for 2-3 journals here. Or I can throw in my case of Winsor & Newton Watercolor Markers.

Add some water to my flask and I'm all ready to go!

Yep, I even made a label for the front cover.

That's it, one travel palette chock-full of pretty Peerless Watercolors in a grab-'n-go messenger style bag.

I'm all set to go a-painting in the wilds of Michigan...

... if only it wasn't 42 degrees outside.

Copic Multiliner vs Pigma Micron: Does It Matter?

Most of my beginners bring Micron pens to class

Even though the supply list specifically states "Copic Multiliner".

Does it matter?

It matters to your artwork!

I'm not a one-tool-works-for-everyone kind of teacher but there is a reason why my Copic Multiliners are worn and well loved while my Micron pens gather dust in a bottom drawer reserved for pencil stubs, old Bic pens, and stray paperclips.

Now I don't rant and rage if someone pulls out a Micron pen in class. I get it- most beginners have used Microns for previous projects and why should you buy a new black pen when you have a bunch of 'em already?

And frankly, it's rare to find a craft shop or art store that carries more than a few stray Multiliners; meanwhile the Microns fly out the door like Olympic sprinters being chased by rabid cheetahs. If you want a Multiliner, you've got to go the extra mile to hunt 'em down.

But in my experience, the two products are not interchangeable. It matters which brand of pen you use.

Four reasons why I do not use Micron pens:

1. Erasers can lift Micron ink

Admittedly, if you never draw & ink your own images, you may never notice this flaw. But trust me, I've banged my head against the wall on more than one occasion.

And it happens on the kind of smooth papers markers like best.

See that light zone down the center of my inking? That's not a creatively placed highlight. That's what happens when you run a white eraser over an area inked with Micron pen. That was 3 passes with a Pentel Hi-Polymer Eraser, a very gentle type of eraser.

With Micron pens, an inker who erases their pencil guide lines has to go back and re-ink the erasure sites to build back up the solid color.

NOT FUN.

2. Copic Ink can cause Micron to bleed

I've seen a few blogs and YouTube videos that claim otherwise. But here's the catch- what paper and what Copic ink are they using?

The brand of paper matters a lot for ink adhesion.

While you can sometimes get away with coloring over the top of Micron ink with your Copics, the Microns really will bleed. It's not a Napoleonic War kind of bloody mess but a bleed is a bleed and it's not a good thing.

All 8 test swatches received 4 passes with Copic colorless blender. The blending solution was loaded into a water brush because I knew what was coming and I didn't want to ruin my colorless blender nib.

The bleeding on both X-Press It and Gina K cardstock was minimal. You can only see it on close inspection and the bleed would be easily missed if I were using a colored Copic ink instead of clear. But the tip of my waterbrush was dark gray which means that your Copic nibs would pick up the Micron ink too.

The bleed was pretty significant on both brands of marker/layout paper that I own. And because I draw all my digi stamps on layout paper, this means no Microns for me!

So if you're using a Micron pen to touch up your stamp or add details, don't run the risk of ruining your project with ink incompatibility. Save the Micron work for dead last!

Yes, I want Beans!

3. I hate the grip on Micron pens

Okay, this is a personal problem and given that I actually have been struck by lightening, I'll admit that my life has challenges which yours may not.

Whiny baby time: Microns have a sharp ridge right where I hold the pen. That ridge digs into my finger, even though I do not use a death-grip. Call me a wimp but Micron pens hurt!

I signed my name six times on scrap paper and this is the dent it left. That was less than a minute of work. It usually takes me about 20 minutes to ink an image.

No way I'm holding a Micron pen for that long. Not happening.

4. Zero Shades of Gray...

I'm not a fan of black coloring book type lines on my coloring images and even when I do work with a black stamp, I almost always add my own details using a gray Multiliner rather than a black one.

Gray is magical ink; it's a chameleon color. Use a gray pen to add veins to a green leaf or stripes to a green eye and it looks like you used a green Multiliner. Use it over something blue and it looks like you used a blue pen. Gray morphs and changes based upon whatever color is underneath it.

For adding subtle or gentle details, gray is king. It's the only color I grab for drop shadows. Black is harsh and detracting while gray sings beautifully, on key- no matter what the key, every single time.

And guess what?

Micron doesn't come in gray.

<face palm>

Different inks. Different adhesion. Different compatibility. Different housing & grip area. Different color palettes.

This is why I own 28 Multiliners and only 4 Micron pens.

And this is why my class supply lists always specifically call for Copic Multiliners.

You can find my newest favorite Copic friendly fineliners here:

Yes, I want Beans!