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blender pens are double tipped and filled with a glycerin formula. you can use them with pastels, markers, watercolor pencils and pearl ex to "paint with" they give your image a soft watercolored finish. aqua painters are brushes that have a barrel that you fill with water, or bleach, and paint with. they are messier, for lack of a better word. my favorite technique is to squeeze some of the ink from a reinker into the lid of the corresponding pad and color with it. you get a really rich, dark color.
or in my case... Blender pens dry out and aqua brushes are always full of water!! I had a blender pen for 6 months and it dried right out... gonna try that dove blender pen refill and see if it gets them back to being juicy again.
I really like my blender pens, I have had them since July and they are still nice and juicy! Although at first I was storing them up and down and was getting frustrated that they were a little dry, but once I started storing the horizontally they came back to life and I have not had a problem with them at all. I have not tried the aqua painters yet, but have heard great things about them!
I prefer the blender pens over the aqua painters...my favorite way to use them is to "smoosh" the ink pad onto its lid and then dip the blender pen into the little bit of ink that is transferred during "smooshing." I think the blender pens, at least for this application, are easier to control, but leave you with a similar watercolored effect. I'm always getting my paper too wet with the aquapainters, and end up frustrated!
Although I thought that the aqua painters would be so much more convenient, I found that they didn't give me the control and color that the blender pens did. I even touch my blender pens directly to the ink pad and that works too. I've had my pens for 6 months now and they still work.
Blender pens have the glycerin in them, but you can add a little glycerin to your water and then put it in your aqua pen. It makes the water a little more stable, so you may find this to be easier to control and a little less messy. It shouldn't soak your paper, either.
You can also refill your Versamark pads with straight glycerin. Glycerin is the "magic" ingredient that turns any dye based ink into pigment based ink, and you can get it at any drugstore for about two bucks a bottle.
You can also make your own stamp cleaner - to seven ounces of distilled water, add a dropper full of dish soap and a dropper full of glycerin. You can make a gallon of this for half the cost of what SU! is selling the eight ounce refill for.
Blender pens have the glycerin in them, but you can add a little glycerin to your water and then put it in your aqua pen. It makes the water a little more stable, so you may find this to be easier to control and a little less messy. It shouldn't soak your paper, either.
You can also refill your Versamark pads with straight glycerin. Glycerin is the "magic" ingredient that turns any dye based ink into pigment based ink, and you can get it at any drugstore for about two bucks a bottle.
You can also make your own stamp cleaner - to seven ounces of distilled water, add a dropper full of dish soap and a dropper full of glycerin. You can make a gallon of this for half the cost of what SU! is selling the eight ounce refill for.
I'm cheap, therefore I know. :lol:
I've used the glycerin recipe for my blender pens (it works!) but didn't know about the wesamark pad! TFS!!
No problem at all! I love to give those little bits of info out when I can. I scrimp every penny for my stamping habit, so I try to make it all count.
Even though I'm a SU demo, and I'm LOYAL to SU, I still can't see spending extra dollars on stuff like that. I'd rather save pennies on that kind of stuff so I can buy more SU stamp sets! :lol:
I try to teach my customers to be thrifty, too, so it boosts my sales in stamp sets. It's sort of like what drug dealers do, you know: "Hey, kid, the first one's free...."
No problem at all! I love to give those little bits of info out when I can. I scrimp every penny for my stamping habit, so I try to make it all count.
Even though I'm a SU demo, and I'm LOYAL to SU, I still can't see spending extra dollars on stuff like that. I'd rather save pennies on that kind of stuff so I can buy more SU stamp sets! :lol:
I try to teach my customers to be thrifty, too, so it boosts my sales in stamp sets. It's sort of like what drug dealers do, you know: "Hey, kid, the first one's free...."
I am just learning to use my aquapen and do like it! I found blender pens were okay, but sometimes "pilled" the paper and I have never had that with the aquapen. I will still use them for my pastels, though.
I am just learning to use my aquapen and do like it! I found blender pens were okay, but sometimes "pilled" the paper and I have never had that with the aquapen. I will still use them for my pastels, though.
I like both really. I like the blender pens for doing really fine teeny work. I can get the fine end of the pen into the smaller spots with more control and without blurring. I like the aqua painters for less fine work. I also like the aqua painters for wetting paper for tearing. And I'm told you can use them for a bleaching technique altho I haven't tried it yet.
So I guess it depends on what you want to do with them.
Aqua Painters, hands down. I just got them and am wondering why it took me so long to get them! I've been through five sets of blender pens, that is $50 worth of blender pens, in 2 1/2 years. They go dry and the tips get "feathered" when I let my campers & workshops guests use them all the time. After one stamp camp, a set was pretty much shot. I did try a glycerine recipe, and would pull out the tips and soak them in it overnight, then add a little to the barrels before I put the tips back in. They would be dry again in no time, and all the while the tips were getting worse. I also find that using them with Pastels just sucks the life out of them, and I don't like the effect anyway. So, for me, Aqua Painters are an exciting new find. I've only had them 1 1/2 months, but I'm hoping they will be a long-term investment. I still use my ink pads and squeeze them to get a little pallet of ink in the lid, like with blender pens, but I like the free-er watercolor look you get with Aqua Painters. I go over my project once, doing a kind of "wash" of color, and then go back with a darker concentration of ink and blend in darker colors, giving it more "life." I if you want control, similar to the blender pens, with the Aqua Painters, I've found that filling the barrel only half-way with water will keep the tips from getting so wet, and all you have to do is squeeze it a bit to get more water to the tip.
__________________ Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. -Faith Whittlesey
I tend to prefer my Aqua Painters. I didn't think it would be so. I didn't think I would like the AP at all and resisted buying them for a while. I finally broke down and made the purchase when buying my first Pearl Ex because I wanted to do the PE and floor wax. I love the Aqua Painters for watercoloring now. They do a much better job, IMO, than the blender pens. And I know I have heard that you can't use the Aqua Painters with the Stampin' Pastels, but I did. I colored my image with the pastels, then went over it with the AP with water and it made a beautiful watercolor image and didn't brush off.
I've been trying to decide if I wanted to invest in the aqua painter myself, cause I've always loved my blender pens. This weekend I used someone else's aqua painter and I really liked it. I was able to get a softer water color look and the point was a little finer so I could do more details. So, I'm definatly getting the aqua painters on my next order, although I will probably still use my blender pens for certain projects.
Blender Pens vs. Aqua Painters?
