What Are Watercolor Pencils And How To Start Painting With Water Soluble Pencils

So what is it that makes a pencil water soluble?

Watercolor pencils are specifically produced with a binder that dissolves in water. They look the same as ‘regular’ pencils, but if you check the lettering stamped on them you will see a little sign to show that the pencils are water soluble, the signs used on watercolor pencils can be a water droplet or
a small brush, or the word ‘watercolor/watercolour’.

What types of watercolor pencils can you buy?

water soluble pencils can be bought in a wide variety of colors, as well as plain graphite pencils. As you know regular pencils are graded soft to hard, this is not applicable for colored watercolor pencils,  but the softer a watercolor pencil is, the easier it is to put color or pigment down on a paper.
Having said that the softness of different makes of watercolor pencils does differ per manufacturer so it may be worth buying a sample watercolor pencil of different brands to see which suits you the best before you buy a complete watercolor pencil set.

What is needed to start painting with watercolor pencils?

A small container with boiled or distilled water, a soft watercolor brush,  a sketchbook or a sheet of paper, something to wipe your brush on, a pencil sharpener and eraser. And not to forget the watercolor pencils start with a small set of 12 or 24 colors, you can always buy additional colors later.

And now how to use watercolor pencils?

The use of watercolor pencils is very much like using a regular color pencils. You hold the watercolor pencils the same way as you would hold a normal pencil, you sharpen them in the same way, and you can erase watercolor pencil like any ordinary pencil. Only when water is added to this recipe and only then is when the uniqueness of the watercolor pencil appears. Adding water can be done in different ways. One way of doing this is to start painting with clean water over your drawing. Another way would be that you lift paint off the watercolor pencil with a watercolor brush and then apply it to your paper, or even wet the watercolor pencil and draw with it or use the watercolor pencil on wet paper.

Let us have a closer look at these watercolor pencil methods;

Painting with a wet watercolor paint brush onto a watercolor pencil drawing:
By stroking over watercolor pencil with a brush full of clean water, the watercolor lines will dissolve into watercolor paint. The intensity of the wash produced depends on the amount of pencil that has been put down on to the stretched watercolor paper, the more pencil, the more intense the color. Do not turn every bit of watercolor pencil into watercolor wash, if you plan on doing that you may as well start using watercolor paints from the start.
By being selective you get the best out of the watercolor pencil colors.

Lifting color straight off a water soluble pencil with a watercolor brush:
To load a brush with a particular color, Do the same with the pencil tip as you would do with a pan of watercolor; wet your brush, then use the brush tip to pick up the color from the watercolor pencil.

Wetting a watercolor pencil before drawing with it:
Take some clean water and put the tip of a watercolor pencil into it, or take a wet brush and dampen the tip, then start drawing, the lines you will get are of intense color. The line will become lighter as the watercolor pencil dries out.

Using a watercolor pencil on wet water color paper:
If you dampen your paper before you draw with the watercolor pencil, the lines of color will be broader and softer than they will be if you draw on dry paper. Because dampened paper is easy to damage work carefully, to avoid damaging the surface of the paper do not use watercolor pencils that are extremely sharp.

Scraping color off a watercolor pencil:
This is a fantastic way to create texture in your painting. Use a knife or something like it to scrape off tiny bits of pencil.
Sprinkle these onto wet paper, or drop a bit of water on top of them, and watch the color spread out.

I always buy my watercolor pencils here