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.

Comments

Sherry said…
Nice to see a post on Twitter today that is not related to the lockdown that we are under in Boston.

I love the Sakura pens. I actually like to wet them with a brush before they dry. I've gotten some lovely pieces with this technique.

Thanks also for sharing info on the tiny plastic things that come on some of the Sakura pens. I could not figure out what I was supposed to do with them.
Gill Edwards said…
Hi, First time ive visited your lovely blog. Im a huge fan of gelly roll pens and have just bought some moonlight and stardust pens. I love them and use them for all my doodling in colour.
I did buy a white souffle pen but find it strange to use as the colour is not instant.

Gill x
melissa said…
I'll have to pull them out again! <3<3<3

The souffle seem to work best on plastic, as most of the time, the ink just gets absorbed into whatever I'm writing on and then of course they don't dry opaque that way.

But they are BRILLIANT on black-paper notebooks.
Sherry said…
I agree! Best pens ever.
Sarah said…
Since taking your class I've become hooked on these too, though I do run into problems occasionally. I think Ive ben pressing too hard. Thanks Kelly!
Carin Winkelman said…
I love the sakura glaze en souffle pens. I especially use the black glaze one very often to outline things. I think my only pet peeve with them is how quickly they empty out (in comparison to some other pens) I think this is probably because the line is thicker and had a more 3d effect than other gel pens. I once did outlines on a painting of houses and went through two and a half black pen before I was finished. And it's not like there was that much crazy detail or anything. Still, as pens go, these really rock! I have never had any problems with them.
crimsoncat05 said…
I do love these pens-- thanks to you!! ;) The only thing I've never been able to figure out is: is there anything you can do to get one to start working again if it's stopped?? I know there's still ink in it, I always store them on their sides, but I just can't get it to work. (which leads to that whole 'scratching-harder-and-harder-with-it-on-the-paper' thing...
Kelly Kilmer said…
@CrimsonCat
A few tips for getting a dead gel pen to work:
-gently scratch it out on cardboard and then scratch paper to see if that works. (this one has worked for me a few times.)
-heat the tip with a hair dryer (NOT a heat gun) for a few seconds. (I don't have a hair dryer so I've never tried this one.)
-put the cap on and vigorously shake the pen to try to get the ink down to the tip. (This has worked for me, too.)
Sometimes the pens are dead for various reasons (I've found the biggest culprit in classes seems to be folks using them on wet gel medium or wet glue stick and that ruins them.) If you have problems with more than one pen, I always suggest contacting Sakura or bringing them back to where you bought them if it's a big name chain store and see if they can replace them.

Ela said…
Hi Kelly, I love the Glaze pens and still learning to use them. I mostly use them to color in peel-off stickers for my cardmaking. One problem I'm having is, when I finish are larger area and it dries, there is a line in the middle which can be seen and takes away from the effect. Is this happening because I'm not putting enough glaze on.
Elaine
Kelly Kilmer said…
Hi Ela,

Try letting it dry and then coloring over where the line area is. Hope this helps!
Ela said…
Thanks for the tip. Sometimes it fixes it but not all the time.
Kelly Kilmer said…
@Ela, sometimes you have to do it more than once. Not always but sometimes.
Lindsay Jayne said…
I'm just wondering, with you mentioning that the white Souffle pen is the same as the clear Glaze pen, will the Souffle's then work for a resist technique as well? I'm looking to use them this way with Watercolors. Great write-up by the way!
Thanks alot😊
Kelly Kilmer said…
@Lindsay Jayne, Yes, they'll work. The only difference will be that they are a color vs clear. Just make sure they're dry before you go for the resist technique on top. Also, the slower you write/draw/make marks, the "puffier" they become. :) Thanks for the kind words.

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