My Love for Sakura Glaze and Souffle Pens

My Glaze and Souffle pens even have their own little bag! I used both pens on the page to the right.

Don't be fooled. The white pen in this one is a CLEAR pen, used for RESIST. Glaze pens dry GLOSS.

White pen!

White Pen! Souffle dry MATTE

It's no secret that I love Sakura's Glaze and Souffle pens. I've been using them on a daily basis since they came out several years ago. I can't tell you how many of them I've gone through. I probably use at least a dozen of the pink pens a year.

I'm always shocked when folks say that they don't like them because they can never get them to work. The number one problem that I see with my students who use the pens and have problems is that they're writing too hard. DO NOT PRESS OR WRITE HARD WITH THESE PENS. THE PENS WILL NOT WORK IF YOU DO THAT. The ink should just flow from the pen like this:

The other thing that I've seen folks do is to test the pen by heavily scratching on paper with them. DO NOT DO THAT EITHER. Again, the ink should just flow from the pen. 

Take the little plastic booger thing off the tip of the pen and throw it away. You don't need it. Write without pressing hard to the paper. The pen doesn't need any pressure to get the ink to flow.

Also, ALWAYS store your pens flat. I can't stress that enough. 

ALWAYS make sure that your paper/canvas/work surface is completely dry before using the pens on it. I've had more class pens ruined because folks are trying to use pens on still wet gel medium, still wet paint or a surface that still has glue stick residue on it. 

I added captions to the above photos so you can see the infamous WHITE pen vs. CLEAR pen. My biggest beef with Sakura (other than they haven't come out with new colors) is that they don't label the pens. They should at least label the white vs clear pens so folks don't get confused (put a piece of tape on the clear pen. I also hold the caps up against each other. The one that is the most opaque is the white pen. #800 is the clear pen.) The clear pen writes clear and dries clear. The white pens (all of them, and they're all the same. You don't need to buy a Souffle AND Glaze white) writes clear but dries white. 

The Glaze pens dry to a GLOSS finish. With the exception of the Black and White pens (which are OPAQUE), they are TRANSPARENT. 

The Souffle pens dry to a MATTE finish. They write a lighter color but dry to the color that you see on the cap.

The pens work on a variety of surfaces: Paper, magazine/glossy paper, glass, transparencies/overlays (sometimes they skip on this surface so I write, let it dry and then write again), tape (though none of any of the pens I use seem to work well on that new so called oilcloth tape that some of the companies have come out with), and DRIED painted surfaces (acrylic, watercolor, gouache.)

You can find out more information about the Glaze and Souffle pens on their website here.

I buy the majority of my pens via my local stamp/art supply stores, Kinokuniya stores and JetPens.

You may be interested in my other favorite supplies which you can find out more about in this post here (lots of links!)

If you have any questions regarding the pens, please feel free to leave a comment in the comments section.