How To Use Watercolor Pencils

When you mix watercolors and colored pencils together, you get something called Watercolor Pencils! Our watercolor artist Sarah Cray and guest colored pencil artist Taylor Lydic are coming together to teach you all you need to know about getting started with watercolor pencils. 

When working with watercolor pencils, it's important to first understand how they differ from both watercolor and colored pencils. While this medium is a mixture of both watercolor and colored pencils, they must be used differently in order to achieve optimal results. They are considered a drawing and a painting medium. If you're wondering how this could be possible, you're in for a TREAT! If you use the pencils just as they are, you can use their texture and color to draw with them. However, if you add the magic ingredient (water), they turn into paint! Pretty cool, huh?!

So, let's talk about how they differ. 

liquid watercolor on left, watercolor pencils without water on right

liquid watercolor on left, watercolor pencils with water on right

Compared to liquid watercolors, watercolor pencils are much more travel friendly! Since they don't need a palette and aren't made of liquid, it's a piece of cake to pack them up and grab an Aquash Brush to make art on-the-go. Since they are pencils and can be sharpened, this also makes them great for detail work!

Notice the difference between a watercolor swatch and a watercolor pencil swatch to get an idea of the opposite textures.

Compared to regular artist colored pencils (meaning colored pencils designed for art-making, not the kind you bought in elementary school), watercolor pencils are a lot less vibrant in color. The same vibrancy can be built up with multiple layers, it just takes a bit more time. The advantage to this is you can fill larger areas of space quicker since you can use water to spread around the pigment.

Artist colored pencils are made of wax or oil leaving behind a slight sheen and smooth finish, making them easy to blend. Watercolor pencils, however, are made of a different kind of binding (this is what the pigment is made of that makes it water soluble or not) that leaves a more matte appearance and makes them a bit harder to blend.