7 Unique Ways to Use Zebra Mildliner Mix Pens

Have you ever purchased a pen that looks amazing but you’re not too sure how to use it? Zebra Pens came out with a new product, the Mildliner Mix pen, and it’s blown my mind! At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to use these dual color pens. But once I started creating, the ideas kept coming! Join me as I unbox these pens and show you not one, but 7 different project using these pens!

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What Makes These Pens Special?

Why should you want another art pen for your creative practice? Because this one will do things that your other art pens just can’t do.

These Mildliner Mix pens come with 2 separate ink barrels that will mix to create a 2-color blend when applied to paper. This is unique to this pen and opens so many creative possibilities!

You’ll notice that when you first uncap these pens is that there is no color in the nib and that it has a rather unusual tip. The tip will seem loose until you add it to the paper. It’s designed this way so that each time you push the nib onto the paper, this lets the inks flow smoothly together giving you a beautiful color mix. I was a bit worried that it might be a bit unstable, but one I practiced with the pen, I found it smooth and comfortable to write with and to control.

Starting Your Markers

The nibs of these pens will be white once you remove them from the packaging. To prime these markers for writing the first time, press down on a scrap piece of paper for 10-30 seconds. I tend to be a bit impatient. I’ll press it down for 10-15 seconds, check and see if any of the color has flowed, then press it down again. If you don’t see both colors, keep pressing until you get an even amount of each color on the pen nib. 

As these are a new product, they currently come in 2 packages of 3 colors: warm colors and cool colors. Here’s what they look like in my sample book. The cool colors are Lavender & Summer Green, Fuschia & Pink, and Lavender & Fushia. The warm colors are Magenta & Apricot, Coral Pink & Lemon Yellow, and Red & Gold. All the colors are beautiful and complement each other to work beautifully on any project!

Tips for Even Strokes

One thing I’ve already learned about these Mildliner Mix pens is that you must be careful with how you apply them onto the surface. Because of the nib design, you may get a little bit of wobble when you press down to engage the pen. The same will happen when you lift the pen from the surface.

I also had to find the right angle for the pen so that the color mix showed consistently. I don’t work with a chisel nib often, so I had to make small adjustments to my hand angle to get consistent strokes each time. If you practice on a piece of scrap paper, within a couple of minutes you’ll have these pens figured out!

Art Techniques Using Zebra Mildliner Mix Pens

Creating Abstracts

These Zebra Mildliner Mix pens are technically a highlighter, but they have uses far beyond highlighting text! These work amazing in art projects to create abstract shapes and designs. I’m starting with swirly lines on a piece of Bristol paper.

This is where you can take advantage of the nature of these pens. Because they mix 2 colors together, you can create vivid and beautiful lines that look complex, but you only need one pen to create them.

If you’re interested in neurographic art, this is the right pen for you!

There’s a lot of different directions that we could take this art piece. I could fill in the areas with other colors of the Mildliner Mix pens, add in journaling, or start this as a background layer to a bigger piece.

Today, I want to play around with doodling and using this as a therapeutic practice. Using a black Zebra Click Art pen and a Sarasa Pourous pen, I’m adding in some of my favourite doodling patterns. This is an easy way to turn some very basic doodles into a beautiful art piece. This could be easily created in a book, on a card or for a different project. The possibilities of this technique are endless!

Creating Flowers

Flowers are a fun and easy way to incorporate Mildliner Mix pens into a project. To start your rose, decide on where you want it on your paper. I like to use the rule of thirds as this is a way to create an interesting composition.

The Sketchy Rose

To start this sketchy rose, choose your favorite color of Mildliner Mix pen. I’m using the Fuchsia & Pink pen. Start with a tiny little “c” shape in the center, then add another “c” shape starting from the center of the first shape. Start building out creating slightly larger shapes, making the c’s more curved and larger as they go out from the centre.

For the first few shapes, I’m only using the tip of the chisel nib, so I’m only getting one color. But as the shapes get larger, you’ll start creating the beautiful color mixes. The key to this technique is making sure that you stagger all the petals. Think about how a real rose looks, how each petal sits overlapping the next petal. Some of the petals can be larger or smaller. For the best success with this rose style, stick to smaller roses, the compact look makes them very pretty.

Create the leaves by connecting 2 curve shapes that connect and fill the shape in with strokes from your pen. I love the look of the green and lavender and how it creates interesting and beautiful leaves. 

The Scribbly Rose 

The scribbly rose is a fun and easy way to create a rose or any flower, especially if you’re new to drawing. I decided to start with a deeper color for this rose using the lavender & fuchsia pen. Start in the center and start swirling outward with your Mildliner Mix Pen. Repeat over the surface several times leaving gaps of white but also having strong areas of color.

This is a very sketchy and loose way to create a rose. Add some black dots to the center of the flowers using a black Zebra Click Art Pen. Because the centers were a little too light for me, I came in with the Fushia & Pink Pen to add color to the center of the flowers.

Finish off this flower using the Summer Green & Lavender pen, make sure to keep the leaves very sketchy with white areas. This will give a sketchy feel to the entire card. I love adding a finishing touch with the black Zebra Click Art Pen. It’s always those small details that make a project feel finished.

Loose Lavender

Lavender is a simple and easy flower to create with the Zebra Mildliner Mix Pens. Add in 3 wavy lines that intersect, then add in small dashes in groups to create the lavender flowers.

If you’ve ever seen lavender, the flowers create these little bunches with small areas of stems in between that have no flowers. It is a super easy and beautiful way to quickly create a card using these fantastic mix pens!

Finishing up the Floral Cards

The final finishing touch to these cards is a nice sentiment or quote. A couple of nice stamps and an archival ink pad can help you create finished look to your cards.  

But what happens if you make a mistake and stamp it upside down like I did? Then stamp your sentiment onto a piece of paper, rim it with the Mildliner Mix Pens and attach to your card. It’ll look just as nice!

Creating Grid Patterns

The beauty of these Mildliner Mix markers is that if you want to sketch with shapes, these are the perfect pens! Just for the sake of experimentation, I created a grid background using the Lavender & Fuschia and the Lavender & Summer Green Mildliner Mix Pens. You could create super tight grids, diamond shapes, dots or mark making to create beautiful backgrounds.

Layering Zebra Mildliner Mix Pens

I was curious to see what would happen if I layered the Mildliner Mix pens. Using the same technique as I did on the cards, but in a larger size, I added in the roses again. It took a bit more work and a few more layers to have them pop a bit more, but I’m very happy with the result!

Even after I completed the drawing, I felt like it was falling a bit too far to the background. This is where the Zebra Click Art Pens came to the rescue! Adding some black swirls around the flowers and leaves and adding a black stamped image helped finish off and elevate this piece.

Zebra Mildliner Pens and Stencils

I couldn’t share with you about these pens without using them with one of my favorite tools: the stencil.  To get the best results, use a stencil with large open areas. For this journal page, I’m using a Dylusions hexagon stencil. Stencils open a lot of creative possibilities with the Mildliner Mix Pens, especially if you don’t like to draw freehand.

The hexagon shape is so fun for creating a whole page of repeating shapes. Using the Mildliner Mix pen, I outlined from the edge, making sure to rotate to make sure that the outer color was the same on each side. Then I started adding layers and layers of the pen inside the stenciled image. What a beautiful result! It’s such a simple idea, but so effective!

What’s nice about this technique is that it’s half the pen strokes that you would usually make for a project like this.

After covering the page with hexagons using 5 of the colors, what can we do from here? This is where mixed media comes in. Going through my stash of stencils and using black paint, I added in imagery to some of the hexagons. I love the contrast between the color and the black paint!

To finish off this piece I outlined the hexagons in black and added in black text with my black Zebra Click Art Pen. The final touch was using the Mildliner Mix Spring Green & Lavender pen to write text for my page title.  

Coloring with Mildliner Mix Pens

Can you use these pens for coloring? Absolutely! Let’s play around with one of my printables that is available in my shop. If you haven’t checked out my shop, please do. I have a lot of printables from my own pen and ink drawings that I’ve made available. If you are looking for the perfect image for your next project, check out this link!

This sunflower was printed on my inkjet printer on Hammermill Cardstock. I love this cardstock because it works beautifully for marker and pen work. What is fun about using the Mildliner Mix pens for coloring is that you get some beautiful variation and definition to the petals and leaves. Because these are a chisel tip, it’s important to choose a larger image.

I find that these pens aren’t fantastic for tiny flowers and fine work. But for covering large areas quickly, while creating contrast and texture to your image, they are amazing! You can see as I color, it takes a minimal number of strokes to fill an image.

After the first layer of color, you can add in some shading or other detail. My first layer of color was using the Coral Pink & Lemon Yellow marker, I added in additional highlights with the Red & gold pen.

Coloring on Paint and Gesso

After creating this beautiful sunflower image, what can you do with it? Add it to a random unfinished page in your journal. This is a page that I was experimenting with different layers but hadn’t figured out how I was going to finish it. But let’s see what we can do to this background using Zebra pens.

I started with adding color to the background. Because you’re adding the Mildliner Mix pens on top of paint and gesso, you won’t be able to get the same vibrance of color as you will on smooth paper. But it’s a fun way to bring color into a page. As I add the color over top of the different paint, it does alter the color. The key was to bring in color to some of the white areas. You can also play around with mark making to see what will happen.

I added my image to my journal page sookwang tape but felt like this page wasn’t complete. Using archival ink and some of my favorite letter stamps, I stamped in my quote. But sometimes when you’re working on a super uneven surface, the ink doesn’t want to stick to the page.

This is where the black Click Art Pen comes to the rescue again! It’s a great pen for adding more color to the black letters and I was able to save this project!

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are so many ways that you can use these Zebra Mildliner Mix pens in your art practice. They are fantastic for planners, for highlighting in books, and for writing with. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for the amazing projects that you can create.

If you’re looking for a new pen for your creative projects, check out this article next where I share a review of some of my favorite Zebra Pens. Not only do I unbox these pens but share some ideas on how you can use them in your art journal or card projects.