NSW19: STAEDTLER Design Journey pens [sponsored]

[Ad – sponsored. This post is part of my sponsored campaign for National Stationery Week 2019. Find out more here]

It’s Day 2 of National Stationery and Day 1 of Stationery Show London. Today’s sponsor, STAEDTLER, is launching a new collection at the show and I was treated to a preview. There’s also a giveaway at the end of the post so you can try some yourself.

Colour and creativity are at the heart of STAEDTLER’s stand at this year’s London Stationery Show and stationery addicts can look forward to around 30 products in more than 60 product variations. And I’m proof that you don’t need to be an artist to use and adore these products. There’s loads here to motivate beginners to start their design journey and to encourage more advanced artists to try new techniques and develop their skills.

Products include STAEDTLER classics, as well as new innovations, such as woodless pencils, pastel pens, brush pens and new colouring and watercolouring pencils. I recently tried the new brush pens, calligraphy pens and watercolour brush pens.

One of my goals for the year is to learn some hand lettering techniques, so I dug out my calligraphy journal and sat down with my new pens. I started out with the brush pens but made the mistake of using the calligraphy template pages instead of the brush letting pages – but it still looks good.

I had a lot of fun blending the colours. The pens are double ended, with a 1-6mm tip at one end and 0.5-0.8mm at the other. The pack comes with 12 beautiful colours, perfect for hand lettering and journaling.

I’ve been trying to master calligraphy for a while now. I’m starting to get there with the strokes but struggle with sizing and spacing. I practiced with a sketch book but I think a dot grid would be helpful. Again, there are 12 stunning colours and they’re double-ended, with a 3.5mm tip and a 2mm tip. There’s also a handy directions instruction image on the packaging to help newbies.

If you want to use these in your bujo, take note of paper thickness and always do a pen test at the back first. There is some ghosting in my 100gsm Dingbats Earth Journal with the heavier end but I think I would only use that for headers anyway.

The watercolours were so much fun. I borrowed a water pen from a friend and tried a couple of different techniques to get used to the pens. I started by colouring and then adding water over the top.

Then I realised a better technique is to transfer the ink to the water pen and painting straight to paper.

I’m not particularly artistic so I want to use them for lettering and adding colour accents to my journal. As with the brush pens, you can use these to blend colours, but be aware of feathering with some lighter paper stock.

Then I took to my Dingbats to try some coloured doodles.

Be wary of adding water to your journal if you’re particularly precious about the pages. And allow sufficient time for drying. The pens themselves didn’t ghost or bleed but adding water to my outlines (Stabilo Sensors) created a bit of a bleed.

Do you feel inspired to get creative? Want to win a pack of your choice? Just complete the Gleam entries below.

STAEDTLER Design Journey pens

Terms and conditions: One winner will receive a pack of brush pens, calligraphy pens or watercolour brush pens. This giveaway closes at midnight on Monday 6 May. One winner will be selected at random and must respond within one week – if they don’t respond a new winner will be drawn. UK entries only.

Don’t miss the rest of this week’s posts:
Monday: Kawaii stationery from Pango Productions (20% off code)