Art Mediums in Your Planner
One of our favorite characteristics of Golden Coil planners is the paper. We use 80# Mohawk in our planners, which happens to be some of the best paper on the market when it comes to planners! It’s also a favorite among artists when it comes to bookbinding, printmaking, sketching and painting.
If you’re new to Golden Coil or if you’re curious about art mediums you haven’t tried in your planner yet, we put together this post for you! We tested some of our customers’ most commonly used art mediums to help you see how they look in our planners. Here are the results!
ACRYLIC PAINT
This is an excellent fit with 80# Mohawk! It paints smoothly onto the paper, causing minimal rippling. Acrylic would be perfect for making studies in your planner or notebook.
OIL PAINT
In order to successfully use oil paint on any paper, you’ll need to prime the paper first. We tested some oils without priming and not surprisingly, the oil started to seep through the paper. We’d recommend priming your paper first or using a different type of paint.
WATERCOLOR & GOUACHE
Mohawk makes a great medium-weight paper for sketches and studies in watercolor or gouache. It isn’t as heavy as watercolor paper, so you will end up with some mild wrinkling in the paper, but watercolor and gouache both dry well and look great in our planners! Dry brush techniques emphasize the slight tooth in the paper.
SOFT PASTELS
These were dreamy on Mohawk! The slightly tooth of the paper held the pastels well and gave them a nice texture. It also facilitated a smooth blending. Keep in mind that the pastels will rub off a bit on the page that touches your working page.
CHARCOAL
Charcoal also transferred to the opposite page, more so when not blended. It was also a nice complement to the paper and blended nicely. We used a kneaded eraser to test a spot and found that with the combination of paper tooth and intensity of color, charcoal did just okay at erasing cleanly.
STAEDTLER DRAWING PENCILS
Staedtler pencils are an excellent medium in our planners and notebooks! We sampled a softer and harder pencil and found that both erased well, although a softer pencil will erase cleanest.
PRISMACOLOR PENCILS
These are an excellent medium and used solo, they allowed the texture of the paper to show through beautifully! We also tried these on top of gouache and watercolor and found that they layered really well.
BRUSH PENS
Brush pens are a really popular medium amongst our clients! We sampled three brands: Prismacolor, Blick, and Tombow. We found that the Prismacolor and Blick brush pens blended decently, but put out a lot of color, which meant that they showed through on the underside of the paper. On the other hand, the Tombow brush pen wasn’t as wet, which meant it showed more of the paper texture and only showed through the underside of the paper if heavily layered.
STAEDTLER FELT PEN
We sampled the Staedtler Lumocolor felt tip pen in medium and found that while it wrote nicely on the paper, it did tend to show through on the underside of the paper, although not as extremely as some of the brush pens.
MICRON FELT TIP
We chose a really thin Micron pen (0.20 mm) and found that it did not bleed through and wrote really beautifully on the paper. It also looks lovely layered with other mediums like watercolor or gouache!
What art mediums do you enjoy using in your Golden Coil planner or notebook? Share with us in the comments below!