Welcome back to Part 2 of my review of Tyler Thrasher’s “Grow A Damn” Plant Journal! If you haven’t seen Part 1 of my review, you can find it here. In this post, I will be testing the paper in this journal with different pens, markers and watermedia (perhaps an unwise decision…) to see how things hold up.
To conduct these little tests, I had to sacrifice a page in the “Recipe” section of my journal. Fortunately, I don’t have that many gardening recipes to log (soil, fertilizer, pest control, etc) so it wasn’t a huge deal. Even with one page (front and back) out of commission, I was still left with 18 other recipe entries to use if needed.
My initial impression of the paper texture is that it’s very smooth and consistent. It almost feels like the paper in a Rhodia notepad (for those calligraphers and handletterers out there!). However, I don’t know for certain what the weight of the paper is; I suspect it’s possibly 90 GSM, so I’ll have to cross my fingers when I test out watermedia washes!
Monoline Pens
The first set of pens that I tested are monoline pens. Because the paper is so smooth, the pens easily glide over the surface. There appears to be little to no feathering of the ink. I think there must be some sort of sizing on the paper that allows the ink to sit crisply on the surface without much of it sinking in. All of these pens worked well, and none of it smeared onto the facing page. I’m not much of a gel pen user and I didn’t test any of those, but they would probably work fine.
The Sharpie Ultra Fine definitely ghosted through the other side of the page. I’m not entirely surprised; a Sharpie pretty much goes through everything. Even so, it’s not terrible. I would still avoid using it altogether and maybe go for my favorite ink pens, the Pigma Microns.
Brush Pens
Next up, I tried some brush pens. The Sakura Pigma Sensei is not actually a brush pen, so it’s in the wrong section. I thought it was a brush pen because of the cone-shaped pen tip, but it’s still more of a monoline. There was also a bit of lint on the tip, which is why “Sakura” looks a bit sloppy. Try to ignore it.
The Pentel Touch brush pen is actually called the Pentel Fude Touch Sign pen.
All of the brush pens held up well on the paper and there was no bleed-through or ghosting. The Tombow brush tip was a little bit frayed, so it didn’t come out as crisp as I wanted it, but the ink doesn’t bleed or feather on the paper. One thing I learned when using the brush pens was that writing within a single line is extremely difficult. It’s too cramped, so I would recommend writing larger if you want to use a brush pen.
Watermedia
Next, I tried some other types of media. I swatched some green Daniel Smith watercolor, and it actually worked quite well! The paper didn’t fray or buckle, but it was only a small swatch.
Using a Tombow brush marker and then going over with some water definitely did not work! The color does not spread and the paper surface doesn’t last if you’re trying to scrub the color with a brush. Use a Tombow brush marker if you’d like to add pops of color, but don’t add any water to it!
The Miya Himi gouache seemed to work fine (check out this post for a review on the gouache set), but it tends to show streaky brushstrokes. The solution to that would be to add more water, but I was wary of doing that on such thin paper. I probably would not recommend doing this unless you were going to primarily use a drybrush technique throughout the entire journal.
And lastly, the Prismacolor alcohol marker… But come on, let’s not pretend—it’s an alcohol marker. They bleed through literally everything.
As you can see, the Prismacolor alcohol marker bled right through (is anybody surprised?). But, so did the Tombow marker + water. That was a bit unexpected, because I didn’t apply that much water. I’m guessing the ink in the Tombow marker may have affected the sizing in the paper and made it more prone to bleed-through.
Here is a spread of my first entry in the plant journal— Philodendron gloriosum! This was the first rare aroid that I ever acquired (for $30! You definitely can’t find those prices anymore!). I used a Pentel Fude Touch Sign pen for lettering the family, genus and species, just to fancy it up and add a bit of visual interest. The rest of the information I filled out with a .03 Pigma Micron pen.
I made an illustration of a Philodendron gloriosum leaf with Daniel Smith watercolor, and ultimately decided against doing it in the future. Using small amounts of watercolor is one thing, but I would not try it with larger areas as I did here. The paper sucks up the water very quickly, which causes it to buckle and the paint to absorb in a streaky manner (it’s quite obvious in the photo above). On the bright side, the paper will still dry pretty flat and none of the color bleeds through into the next page. If you want to add color, I would recommend using colored pencils or water-based markers, or only a tiny bit of watercolor applied with a drybrush technique. Anything beyond that and you may regret it dearly.
Overall, I believe the paper held up really well to all the pens and markers that I tested. Going forward, I will probably continue to use my Pentel Fude Touch Sign pen and my Pigma Micron pens, and adding color with colored pencils and occasional, small amounts of watercolor. I hope you enjoyed this review and found it helpful! If you have any questions, leave them in the comments.
Always Keep Growing,
Heather (a.k.a. The Botanical Chick)
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