Prismacolor Markers

So...they sucked me in. Who you ask?? All those fine stampers with skill using Prismacolor or other high end art markers. The Anna Wights and Ellen Hutsons of the stamping world. My husband asked me the other day if I was artistic in high school. Well, no honey, I am today as I was then, a wannabe. If I buy just the right tools of the trade maybe I can be like them. (I know I am not alone in those thoughts) Deep sigh...fluff my pillow...I am dreamin'!! Now, hear me, this is not me throwing myself a pity party!! I am pleased with my stamping abilities and get better as time goes on, but I am reminded of my limitations. There are those who are naturally gifted and then those of us who have to work hard at it. Good thing that the "working" is so much fun. I actually love stamping because I am not naturally artistic, the art is in the stamp. I can just hone my skill of coloring and composition. I bought the Prismacolor markers in hopes of furthering my coloring skills. I had a review of sorts written about my experience with these markers and decided to delete it. I will give you the short of it for now because I did a search to find a real tutorial on them and realized I am in over my head. Fine art markers are for fine art and I couldn't even wrap my brain around some of the terminology they assume you must know if you are reading their stuff.
So here is my amateur analysis. They are bright, beautiful, double ended markers. In the set of 48 I bought there are no really soft/subtle colors. Once you put marker to paper the color is powerful. I thought that these would be more blendable then they are. I even bought a Prismacolor blending marker thinking that it must mean they are blendable. If you look at the close up you will see that the leaves have some darker areas and that was done by using the same marker to go over an area 2-3 times. The blender does not effect much of a change to the colored areas. I think I wrongly assumed I would be able to drag color. Once the ink is down, it is down. You can go over it again, even with a different color but you can't lighten/blend the ink like you can the SU markers or ink. Take into consideration that I could be the problem, not the markers, LOL!! In my on line search today I didn't find anything to suggest they could be blended in the way I thought. I tried them on two different papers to get a feel for them. The square card is done using shimmer paper and the tall card uses watercolor paper. I put the two samples side by side in a close up for you to see. They aren't that much different in color but the watercolor paper obviously has more texture to it. I don't think these markers are designed for watercolor paper but I needed to see for myself. I will try more papers in the days to come. So, I have mixed feelings. On one hand I like the bold colors and the quality of the markers. They indeed don't leave marks or steaks, they give a nice coverage. I like the images I colored with them. On the other hand I am disappointed in the lack of blending I can do. It may be I don't have enough of the shades of each color. They have something like 20-30 different greys for example. Do I want to invest in even more at this point? I did read about using glass as a palette for blending colors before putting them to paper and I will try that sometime. Silly me should have done my homework before buying them. Maybe that is the lesson here. Owning fine art markers no more makes me a fine artist than driving through McDonalds makes me a Big Mac!! I will enjoy using them now that I have them but for a stamper like me they probably weren't necessary. How was that for a brutally honest look at things, no way you can call me an enabler this time ;)?!!
If you want to know the rest of the story on the cards, the card stock used is bashful blue, black and green galore. The square card uses the CB Spots and Dots embossing folder and the tall card uses French Script and the spiral punch. Both cards have black Stickles on the flowers for accents.