Fade Test

On May 11, a little over three months ago, I put a few stripes of color on a piece of card stock. I cut the paper in half. One half went in a cool, dark drawer and the other half in a south-facing window. When I restored both pieces, it was possible to see how much each color faded.

The Caran d’Ache water-soluble colored pencils fared surprisingly well. But the markers faded considerably. The newsprint paper went from a light gray to a yellowish brown.

The Sharpie Accent highlighter went through a strange transformation. It started out a light fluorescent yellow. A few weeks later it darkened as it lost the component dyes that convert ultraviolet light to visible light. Eventually the yellow color disappeared entirely.

The Sharpie Permanent marker turns out to be not very permanent.

Today I made up a bunch of new swatches with oil, watercolor, pastel, marker, dyes, colored pencils, ballpoint pens, fountain pen inks and inkjet printer inks. Anything else you’re curious to see put through the test?

A few months from now I’ll let you know how they come out.