Chalkola Acrylic Marker Review (Bullet Journal Version)

I’m excited to review these Chalkola Acrylic Markers. Just a heads up, I reviewed these markers for use in my bullet journal and on paper. I love to use a lot of art supplies when I bullet journal. Sometimes I branch out and use the supplies outside of a notebook (a few of which I’ll highlight, here) but in general, I tend to stick pretty close to my notebooks and paper. I hope I cover everything you’d like to know in this Chalkola Acrylic Marker review – especially when it comes to bullet journaling. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them in the comments below.

By the way, Chalkola sent me these acrylic markers, but with no pretense. They just said they liked my art on Instagram. So any opinions are mine & mine alone. You can learn more about my disclosures here. By the way, check me out on Instagram @ChocolateMusingsCreates

About the Acrylic Markers:

The Chalkola Acrylic Markers I received came in a pack of 20 colors with an easily reversible 3mm bullet tip or chisel tip. They have a new 1mm extra-fine tip that I’m excited to try. But I used the 3mm tip markers equipped with the bullet tip for my test.

Find the Markers Here:

• Amazon
• Chalkola Website – Use this link for 10% off!

Colors in the 20-Color Pack

The coffee looks more like a coffee diluted with a lot of creamers. I couldn’t tell the difference between taffy and electric pink. I’d love to see another shade of red or green instead of the selection of pinks. Overall, I like the quality and intensity of the colors. They’re semi-opaque, but you can add extra layers for a more opaque look.

The Basics: How to Paint with Chalkola Acrylic Markers

Before starting, activate all of your markers.

To activate your markers, shake the marker with the capped side upright several times before removing the cap. The box recommends shaking for 30 seconds per pen. When finished, remove the lid and press the marker’s tip up and down quickly several times on a piece of paper to get the ink flowing.

The box recommends using these acrylic paint markers on rocks, wood, metal, plastic, glass, ceramics, porcelain, and fabric. But you know I’ll test on other materials including my faux leather bullet journal cover and, of course, paper. I’m excited to see how they work in my notebook as well.

When finished, recap tightly and store them in a horizontal position.

Questions I Asked as I Reviewed the Acrylic Markers by Chalkola

First of all, I wanted to see how Chalkola acrylic markers worked on all sorts of surfaces (including the faux leather bullet journal cover). I don’t do a whole lot of other crafting, so I am sure these markers have many other uses – more than what I tested.

With watercolors, I know how to blend colors and transition from one color to another. But I wasn’t so sure what would happen with these Chalkola acrylic markers, especially on my bullet journal cover. So that’s what I set out to do.

• Which Materials are best for the Chalkola Acrylic Markers?
• Are the markers easy to use?
• Is the paint permanent after it dries?
• Does it rub off or wear off easily?
• Can I remove the Chalkola Acrylic Paint after it dried – even from my bullet journal cover?
• Can I fix mistakes (remove paint) while wet?
• How quickly do Chalkola Acrylic Paint Makers dry?
• Could I easily blend the colors?
• What blending technique should I use?
• If I used the marker tips to blend, how easily do they clean afterward?
• Do the marker tips stain? (Meaning does the tip of the Chalkola Acrylic Marker self-clean, or does the tip continue to look dirty from the other colors.)
• How would the colors look on a dark surface?
• How well do the markers work after 6 months of non-use?

Chalkola Acrylic Marker Review – Bullet Journal Cover:

Since I bullet journal, I of course want see what I can use in (or on) my notebook. So I decided to paint the cover of my faux leather notebook Tumbitri Meri. If you’d like to know more about the Tumbitri Meri notebook I’m currently using, you can read (or watch) the review here.

The company logo was debossed in gold on the front cover – which I figured would be a good test on different surface materials for these Chalkola Acrylic Paint Markers.

What I Learned From the Notebook Cover Experiment

Painting the cover of my new bullet journal with Chalkola Acrylic Markers would help me learn several things about them. In this experiment, using the Chalkola Acrylic Paint Markers on my bullet journal cover, I discovered in real life how the markers performed.

Here’s what I learned:

• The ink dried quickly, so I had to work in small sections.
• The colors blended easily if I pushed down on the marker to release a little more paint. Like combining other water-based markers (like Tombows), the shades blended easier if I used the lighter color to mix. I used darker colors over the top of the logo to hide it better.
• After mixing colors, I’d scribble on a piece of paper off to the side and clean the marker’s tip. It worked like a dream, and even the white marker didn’t stain. So every time I colored, the color was pure instead of muddied with another color.
• The colors are not entirely opaque but become less and less transparent with each additional layer.
• I found that if you add a base layer, let it dry, you could color over it again and enhance the color. You could blend with other colors at that point as well.
• The markers needed multiple coats to cover dark surfaces.
• If they started streaking, you could wait for them to dry and go over the same area again without a problem.
• After letting the acrylic paint dry for a couple of minutes, I gingerly touched the paint. It was not tacky in the least. There were no visible or textured raised areas like you might find when painting with acrylic paint from a tube.

Read more about the process I used to paint the notebook cover in this post.

What I’d Do Differently

• Next time I won’t be as shy about blending colors. Knowing that I can quickly and efficiently clean the marker tips makes all the difference in confidently mixing colors without worrying that I’ll ruin the tip or permanently stain it.

If you want to decorate your bullet journal or planner cover, I’d say these acrylic paint markers are the way to go. Check out how I used these markers in my September Leaves Theme. I even blended small areas of color directly on the paper.

How Well Do They Clean-Up (After a Mistake)?

I colored outside the template lines a few times (gasp!) but removed the color with water and a Q-tip while the paint was still wet. The paint didn’t bleed under the template as it was not overly wet, so it stayed where I put it. In my second experiment (6-months later), I pushed down too hard and got a big blob of paint on the notebook cover. It cleaned up nicely with a few swipes of a wet Q-Tip.

If you mess up on an area where the paint’s already dried, use a bit of water or rubbing alcohol and a Q-Tip and rub at the mistake. The color will start to fade away. You might, however, see a different result based on the type of surface you’re painting.

Six months later, the paint looks great on the cover. I take my bullet journal everywhere in my purse. I would give the durability an A.

Inside the Notebook – Marker Review

Not only did I use the markers on the outside of my notebook but I also used them inside. Don’t worry, I’ll give you those details for this Chalkola Acrylic Marker Review.

In one case, I covered most of the page with paint (teal future log pages + argyle sweater cover page). If I colored slowly, I reduced the streaking. Probably because the paint was drying so quickly. One nice thing that I could cover the entire page in color and the page didn’t buckle as it does with watercolor. And for a layered design look like the argyle sweater cover page, just wait until the paint is dry and color over it. Since I use notebooks with thick pages, I had no trouble with bleeding.

I had trouble writing over the paint with my regular gel pens, but fineliners seemed to work just fine. I also used some lettering pens (Fudenosuke and Pentel Touch) which worked well over the markers (page with boxes & yellow box).

As far as testing on black paper, I did a pretty terrible job about documenting how the colors showed up on black paper vs. white paper, but I did notice quite a bit more streaks on dark paper. The dark paper required more layers just like the dark notebook covers. I think if I slowed down those streaks would go away and if you let the paint dry in between layers, the coverage would be better. When I get some 1mm pens, I’ll test it out better on black paper.

Bleed Through Review

The markers didn’t bleed through in my regular notebook. It does have thicker pages (160gsm) than a Leuchtturm or Exceed notebook. So I also tried a notebook with super thin pages (the thinnest pages I could find!). As you can see from the first and second pictures, the markers ghosted but didn’t bleed through on this thin paper any worse than the regular pens I use on it.

Find the Markers Here:

• Amazon
• Chalkola Website – Use this link for 10% off!

Reactivating the Markers Six-Months Later – Will They Still Work?

After an unexpected break from all things creativity (2020, am I right?!), I came back to this half-finished post and decided to dedicate a portion of the review to how well the Chalkola Acrylic Markers faired six months after opening them and activating them.

When I cracked open the box, I half expected each marker to be completely dry. After shaking them and ‘re-activating’ them, they seemed to work better than I expected. I think the markers laid horizontally (for the most part) during my six-month hiatus, which probably helped.

There was only one marker that I had issues reactivating. That was (I think) the electric pink. That was the only marker I switched the tip from round tip to chisel tip and left it that way. Not sure if that had anything to do with it, but that’s what I observed. I was able to coax the changeable tip out and could see that the paint had dried around where the tip met the reservoir.

I soaked the tip in a bit of water (hey! it was that or the trash can at this point) and stuck a pin down the marker tube to see if I could break up the dried paint. Amazingly, it worked. I could tell that the marker wanted to roll over and die, but it reactivated for my little experiment. I figure if I worked at it a little more, I could restore it further.

How Do Six-Month Old Markers Work?

All of the swatches below were done after the 6-month period. Certainly not like new, but I was surprised that they weren’t completely sealed over.

In good fashion, I created another cover with the markers to test blendability (is that a word?) and the flow of the markers. As you can see, I struggled a bit with the blue on the end. I had to make a pool of ink in a couple of instances and dip the markers into the pool to get the right amount of ink. Sometimes I pushed too long and hard to get more ink flowing and created ink blobs, but even these large blobs cleaned up with a Q-tip.

I would rather use these markers when they are fresh and newly activated, but what else can you expect from acrylic markers? In general, I was pleasantly surprised that they worked at all and were easy to reactivate for the most part.

Summary – Chalkola Acrylic Marker Review

Find the Markers Here:

• Amazon
• Chalkola Website – Use this link for 10% off!

The markers are straightforward and easy to use. Once they’re activated, there is not much effort to start creating. I haven’t tried extremely hard to remove the paint, but it doesn’t seem to scratch off or rub off easily. If you like a variety of supplies for your bullet journal, I would definitely add these to your list!

I’d love to know what you thought of this review and if you’ve tried acrylic markers in your bullet journal or notebook. Leave me a comment below!

• Tutorial: How Watercolor Paint with Markers in Your Bullet Journal
• Beginning Lettering Supplies
• April Plan With Me 2019- Recipe Art Inspired
• September Leaves with Acrylic Markers- Planner Set Up

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