Art with Coloured Gel Pens - Sakura Gelly Roll Moonlight Cosmos

I posted a couple of weeks ago here about some of my experiments using white gel pens on black paper. I really enjoyed the effect it gave and was keen to try some of the coloured pens.

I have some of the Gelly Roll moonlight pens for cardmaking, however they're either glittery or a bit bright for the nature art I do. So I purchased some of the Gelly Roll Moonlight in the Cosmos set, and also the Urban Grey set.

The Moonlight Cosmos set of pens, combined with the three Urban grey pens, and a pack of white, make a great limited palette than could be used for nature themed subjects and landscapes.

As someone who tends to enjoy having lots of colours at my disposal using a limited palette from time to time is a great exercise. It makes me more creative with colour choices so I pull away from realism into something more expressive, as seen in the buzzard illustration above.

The Urban grey set is designed to compliment the Cosmos one, so you get a couple of blue tones greys and a couple of warmer greys with the two sets combined. These are very effective on the black paper, as with this Blackbird illustration and the small bit of colour brings it alive. You could just use the greys on their own for a more muted effect.

My favourite illustration I did was the Grey heron. All the colours worked perfectly for it and I think the effect is striking.

Sakura pens are excellent quality, with ink that will be lightfast, so suitable for artwork intended for sale. Gel pens do take a bit of getting used to since they tend to be a little globby at times to draw with. However I think the effect on the black paper makes for some effective artwork and I know I'll be doing plenty more with these. 

These are the supplies I used. 

Clairefontaine Paint'On black paper 

Sakura Gelly Roll Urban Greys

Sakura Gelly Roll Moonlight Cosmos pens

Sakura Gelly Roll white pens 

Sakura Pigma Micron Fineliners