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Glaze Pens
Author: Tyra L. Smith
(Manufacturer:  Sakura  http://www.gellyroll.com/)

When I first heard about these new "pens" from Sakura, I must admit I was not very optimistic that they would be much different from the other million and one pens I have in my huge assortment. I mean…after all, a pen is a pen right???

Let me start out by saying that for this particular time, I will have to "eat crow" and I'm finding it isn't all that unpleasant!! (battered and fried naturally, with a little butter and garlic!)

And before I start my product review, I want to first say…"THANK YOU SAKURA, for giving us a very unique and versatile tool for our toolboxes!!!"

Yes, in case you haven't figured it out by now, I absolutely LOVE AND ADORE these new Glaze Pens by Sakura. They will be available for purchase sometime after January 1, 2004. I suggest you RUN (don't walk), find a set and purchase them. They are MORE than worth the cost.

Sakura has given us a HIGH QUALITY artist tool with these pens. Yes, a TOOL! They aren't your ever day "writing stick". The pen body itself is simply a tool for application, it's the ink in the pens that is WONDERFUL !!!

I removed the pens from the package and looked at one of them. Hmm…not all that impressive at first sight (but WAIT, it gets better and better!). I took the cap off the purple pen only to find a little "removable safety cap" stuck to the top of the pen. Now that was really nice and spoke great volumes to me about the quality of this product. I KNEW no one had opened them and I also knew that the ink would be fresh, uncontaminated and ready to go. So, go I did. I wrote my name on a scrap of paper and was IMMEDIATELY entranced. So glossy…so sleek and fluid….so RAISED????? What? An embossed line WITHOUT the heat gun and powders? Oh yes, that's EXACTLY what it did. I sat there and looked at it, thinking it was pretty cool. I kept thinking that there are so many stampers who have allergies or respiratory problems that keep them from fully enjoying the magic of heat embossing. These Glaze Pens will make it possible for them to enjoy this technique we all so dearly love.

The Glaze ink does have a bit of an extended wet time, but it isn't all that bad. It only takes a few minutes to air dry and if you were in a big hurry, you could use your heat gun to speed dry it.

This immediately set me on the path of finding out just what I could write on with the Glaze Pens. I tried EVERYTHING I could get my hands on. Glass, metal, a variety of plastics, transparencies, CDs, plastic CD covers, my computer monitor (the plastic part above the screne), a glue bottle, a glass coffee mug, a domino, the back of my hand, a large assortment of cardstocks and vellums and I would have tried writing on my dog's nose if I could have caught her!!! The Glaze ink air dried on EVERYTHING I tried it on.

One thing I found is that you need to be aware that oils from your hands will create a resist to the Glaze inks. This is not uncommon and it is an issue we all face with every ink we deal with. So, if you plan to write on plastics, glass, dominoes, transparencies, etc….make sure you prep the surface by wiping it with alcohol to remove any hand oils.

Are the Glaze Pens permanent?That depends on what type of project you are working on. I wouldn't use the glaze pens on wearable fabric pieces, they aren't that permanent and weren't meant to be. As for "flaking off"....if you scratch and abuse it with your fingernail, it will come off. I do think the Glaze ink is somewhat flexible though, because I was able to bend a piece of vellum back and forth (it had writing and small solid images on it)...and it didn't crack or flake off that way. They are water-resistant so they are permanent enough to work as a nice resist to inks and watercolors (no smearing under wet work, would probably work well with a blender pen too).

Are the Glaze ink colors transparent or opaque? That is a hard question to answer. The black is DEFINETELY opaque. But the other colors....like when you put them on a transparency and hold it up to the light.....they are transparent enough to look like stained glass. But, when you use them on a dark surface (such as black glossy)...some colors show, some don't. Put them on dark Stardream or Touche' Cover cardstock and almost all the colors show. You can pretty much guarantee success on light colored surfaces. Dark surfaces tend to be more tricky and you should test the ink colors before using them on a dark surface. That Glossy Pink, it shows up on just about EVERYTHING...but it also looks like stained glass on a transparency.

And, in case you wonder, there's no odor with any of the colors.

The pen body has a .80mm ball which creates a .70mm bold line width. I've found that by altering the pressure, you can also create different lines widths.

Here's my test findings:
1. Glass - Glaze pens write beautifully on glass and as long as you don't have any stray hand oils lurking about, the ink won't bead on the glass. Lay it flat to let it dry so your ink doesn't run down the glass.

2. Metal - same findings as with the glass.

3. Plastics - same findings as with the glass.

4. Dominoes - VERY cool indeed. The Glaze pens are perfect for creating textured accents.

5. Vellums - the inks are most beautiful on vellums.

6. Matte Cardstocks - once again, a very beautiful result!

7. Glossy Cardstocks - the Glaze pens write beautifully on glossy cardstocks. The only time I had a problem was with some brands of metallic (gold/silver) cardstocks and the Glaze ink tended to bead up on ONLY those metallic colors. What truly amazed me was that the Glaze pens wrote extremely well on reflective Mirri Card and on all colors of it - WOW. Not much tends to work on Mirri Card.

8. Corrugate Cardstock - another nifty little wowser thing!!! I used several colors of the Glaze pens to go over the raised corrugate lines and then dotted other Glaze ink colors in the recessed portion of the corrugate. I REALLY liked how that jazzed up the corrugate and it will make an awesome background/layering piece.

9. Transparencies - all I can say is WOW. Now I can use ANY kind of transparency (not just the heat resistant type) and get raised/embossed lines. I even drew a little box with several boxes inside it with the Black Glaze Pen, let that dry…then came back and filled in the insides boxes with other colors of the Glaze Pens….WOWOWOWOWOW !!! This tells me that I'm pretty sure I could create an awesome stained glass window piece with these pens!

10. Suede Paper/Handmade Petal Papers/Mulberry Papers - these papers are extremely absorbent and tended to absorb the Glaze ink so quickly that you don't get the raised/embossed line effect. However, I personally don't find this to be a problem, mainly because we hardly ever "write" on those types of papers. They are generally used for layering. If you aren't sure, test the Glaze pens on a small scrap of your surface to see if it is too absorbent for the Glaze pens. I doubt you will find many that are.

11. Polymer Clay pieces - once again, the Glaze pens work beautifully on baked polymer clay, providing awesome accents and details.

12. Plain Text Weight Paper - the Glaze pens write beautifully on this too.

13. Shrink Plastic - WOW….great for adding accents and detail after shrinking.

It is worthy to note here that the Glaze ink, once dry…takes a beating nicely. I wrote a couple of words and drew a few hearts on vellum and let it dry. Then I folded and stressed the vellum where I wrote only to find that the Glaze ink did NOT crack off. I KNOW that does NOT work with standard heat embossing!

I created a few Polished Stone background pieces using Glossy White cardstock, a Krylon leafing pen and Pinata Inks. After it dried, I then wrote on top of that with the Glaze pens and I was extremely happy with the results.

I took some Sheer Heaven and drew a few simple flowers on it with the Glaze pens and let it dry. Next, I took out my watercolors and waterbrushes and painted right over the flowers I had drawn. The Glaze ink, when dry, acts as a beautiful resist to waterbased products. I used the Sheer Heaven for my surface because it is one of my favorite surfaces for watercoloring. The Glaze pens come in several colors, one of which is Clear. The Clear pen will be outstanding for creating resists and batik-like effects.

You can use the Glaze pens over the top of colored pencil work too.

I think that the Glaze pens will work in combination with many other products and techniques. The only thing you need to be careful of is that you don't contaminate your Glaze pen with another "product". Working slowly and allowing layers and products to dry fully before using the Glaze pens on top of them should prevent any problem you may have with contamination. You wouldn't dip a brush into watercolor paints and then dip the same brush into acrylic paints without first washing it out, this keeps one paint from contaminating another. The same goes for the Glaze pens.

The Glaze Pens are available for purchase in multi-packs or individual colors (in a package of 2 pens per color). There are 16 colors available at this time:

-Gloss Orange
-Gloss Pink
-Gloss Purple
-Gloss Blue
-Gloss Yellow
-Gloss Red
-Gloss Rose
-Gloss Green
-Gloss Black
-Gloss Clear -Gloss Sepia
-Gloss Turquoise
-Gloss Hunter Green
-Gloss Royal Blue
-Gloss Gray
-Gloss White

You can find more information about Sakura products on their web site listed at the top. They even have a retail store locator so you can find a retail outlet near you that sells their products.

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