A Shade of Art

Regular colored pencils are excellent for beginner artists and for young children. However, there will come a point in an artist’s development when it’s time to progress to more advanced tools and applications to create art.

A watercolor pencil is that step from the basic to the intermedia level.

What makes watercolor pencils so unique and flexible is that it is a water-soluble binder that allows the pigment to alter into paint once it is mixed with water!

So, in this blog, I will cover everything you will need to get started.

Equipment

Of course, if we are going to watercolor pencils, well, we need to quickly discuss the well-known brands out there to buy.

Studio Collection

Arteza Woodless

Derwent

Faber- Castell Albrect

Caran D’Ache

Studio Collection and Arteza Woodless are great for beginners because they’re cheaper brands and you can easily find them in any general goods store like Walmart or Target.

Professional note: If you do decide to go with the cheaper brand, please keep in mind that some of the colors may not be permanent and can fade.

I would like to start with watercolor paint and then use a watercolor pencil to add detail and sharpen things up to show control.

Here are some examples to use to add detail:

Face

Mouth

Hair

Skin tone blemishes (Wrinkles, pimples, etc.)

Paper

Anytime you use any wet media like watercolor paint or pencils, it is always recommended to use heavyweight paper. You should use 140 lbs or more. You can get away with cutting cost on a fancy brush, but paper in this media is hard to shred cost with quality because cheap paper will warp and crinkle and this isn’t something what you want.

Here are some popular brands for Watercolor drawing paper:

Strathmore 400 series

Canson Classic drawing paper

Brea Reese Watercolor paper

Grumbacher Watercolor pad

Strathmore is a known good quality brand, but if you are on a budget, Grumbacher is available at Walmart, and you can find Brea Reese brand anywhere online.

Masking tape

Masking tape comes in handy because it will prevent paper warp and crinkling up your images.

Water cup

Keep a cup filled with water in your workstation. The water cup is good for dipping and keeping the watercolor pencil wet.

It is not necessary to use any water if you are drawing in detail or if you are sketching out an outline of a subject.

Eraser

Please keep in mind that a watercolor pencil is permanent once it is mixed with water and applied to paper. However, if you keep the pigment dry, you can use an electric eraser to lift color and lighten any dark spots.  

Wipe cloth

Finally, I like to use a wipe cloth to catch any water from smudging or bleeding across the canvas.

Common Dry techniques

I will begin with some common dry watercolor techniques. The rules apply the same to normal colored pencils.

Burnishing

Layered the paper until the original paper tooth is no longer visible.

Pressure shading

Apply a light shade of coloring in one area, and in contrast, add another area with a heavier shade of coloring.

Underpainting

Add your very first layer in monochrome to lay down the foundation of your drawing.

Hatching

Add lines to a drawing to create light and dark areas.

Crosshatching

Add lines that cross over each other.

Common wet techniques

Now I will address adding water to your color pencil.

Wet-on-dry

Wet-on-dry requires a bit more time to work with, but it is often used for blending colors and adding more hue and saturation.

Good to create:

Facial Hair

Moustache

Beard

Grass

Mountains

Hills fields

Rain

Wet-on-wet

The wet-on-wet technique is when newly applied paint is layered over previously applied wet paint.

Good to create:

Clouds

Snow

Traces of light

Shadows

Blending colors

I like to purposely touch up a wet area with a separate color to get a splotch effect.

Good to create:

The reflection of a lake

A River

The sky.

Watercolor pencils work well with portraits and can stand alone when selling art, but the creativity is limitless with these types of pencils. So hopefully this blog has helped you get started.

Go out and start creating today!