I thought I’d add a series of posts that introduce my new watercolor crayons, a few old ones, and how to start using them in hopes that some of what I do may help someone else.
When I first bought watercolor (or water soluble) crayons I tried them and didn’t like them at all! I thought the colors garish and harsh. I thought “what a lot of money for these little things and I’m not going to use them!”. Well I’ve only recently pulled them back out and have been playing with them. I’ve learned from using watercolor pencils, go lightly at first until you know just what your colors will do when you wet them.
Please click on pictures to see them bigger.
Water soluble crayons in a tin
Here’s the set of colors I started with, Caran D’Ache Neo colors and one or two Derwent Watercolor crayons. I also show a “crayola wax crayon” and explained in another post (below) how I used it. I cut them in half (oh heavens yes I did!) to make them lighter to carry in my sketch bag and I could fit more; here I show them in an “Altoids” mint tin. The other halves go into a baggy for later or to carry in another kit.
I took them out into the field and did some small landscape studies using these few crayons. There are links at the end of my post you can click on to read about them. After doing them I was feeling more enthused about my crayons, I think it’s time to look for more colors!
New Tin of Watercolor Crayons, Staedtler "Karat Aquarell" Neocolor II
More colors in other brands…landscape colors hopefully. I thought I’d try these Staedtler “Karat Aquarell” neo color II, they were reasonably priced online. Because I’ve been desperate for sunshine this spring, it was gorgeous that evening so I sat on my front steps to do my color charts.
New Watercolor Crayons, wow look at all those colors!
Here’s the crayons! Woohoo….they look nice! I’m hopeful that some of those greens might be what I was looking for.
Getting ready to wet the colors and have some fun!
First I want to stress that before you do any paintings with ANY media, watercolors, color pencils, oils etc, you should ALWAYS do some color charts of all your colors. This will help you to get to know the colors as they really look on paper (or canvas) and get familiar with how to handle them.
In my sketch journal, I rubbed a small spot of color and wrote in permanent ink pen the colors name next to it. It helps to also put an initial for the name brand too or label it at the top as I did. Prepare one row and do the wash before you color the next set of spots, just so you don’t run out of room. Keep it neat because you can refer back to these charts again and again as you get to know your colors.
Color Charts of two brands of Watercolor Crayons
After you make your dry spots of color take a waterbrush or regular watercolor brush and water, wet the bristles and touch it to the color spot. Notice how as you ‘rub’ the color it releases and becomes like watercolor. If you rub a lot you can blend the spot right out for an even tone, but leave some intense color there, drag your brush as you rub back and forth, to one side to pull color away. Then lift your brush to stop, don’t rub too far out, keep ’em neat. Now your ready to put on any more spots you may need to and wet them; leave room for labeling them. After wetting a color rinse your brush and wipe or rub on a paper towel to make sure all color is cleaned off it.
As you can see, I did my new crayons on the left, my original crayons on the right so I can compare them.
Color Charts with my comparing colors close together in the centre.
Now to have some more fun, it’s time to compare colors from different sets so I can decide which ones are too similar to carry around with me. This is a ‘getting to know you’ exercise now and VERY important! The more you play with your colors the better your choices will be when you’re painting. Sometimes when I haven’t painted in a certain media in awhile, I’ll go through and do color charts just like this. So you can see the middle is a riot of colors!! I grouped the blues, then greens then browns and goldie colors, all good for landscapes. Label, label, label!!
( I really like how this page looks with all the color swatches, I decided to make note cards and t-shirts of it!! See the links at the end of this post 😉 )
More color play to further test some out.
Ok, then the page adjoining that one had to be used for more testing, wow, am I going to use all these pinks?
My Watercolor Crayons + Waterbrush
After all this playing I ended up with a pile of cut crayons (yes I cut my new crayons in half too! Yikes how awful!) So I searched through my favorite shelf of odds n ends, containers etc for my field kits, and found a plastic case from I think, a small first aid kit. I love that it’s plastic = lightweight! This is a picture from my previous blog post where I used the big flat water brush.
Here are the blog posts I’ve done so far using the crayons, in order of date posted:
- “Step Outside Your Door Today” (first time using the crayons, scroll down to see the landscape I did after the poem)
- “Cloud Study With Water Soluble Crayons” (Loved how this came out, getting to know the crayons better!)
- “Wind in the Willows – Clouds and Crayons” (I REALLY love this one!)
And here are some links for FUN things with my color charts printed on them! (you can change text on them)
- “Keep on Painting” T-shirt
- “Keep on Painting” Apron (for studio or kitchen)
- “Keep on Painting” Note Cards, very colorful and totally customizable.
- Color Chart Note Cards with full page color chart!
- Color Chart 2 Note Cards with full page color chart # 2!
I hope showing you how I work helped you out! Please leave comments if you have any questions.
Thanks for all the information. I love your work, very beautiful.
OH I’m so grateful for this post Mary!
I’m doing this today, myself.
And I’m asking for the Apron for Mother’s Day!! 🙂
It makes a wonderful print.
🙂
So creative.
Kel
I absolutely loved this posting! I can “feel” the colors and I know my dreams to paint are continually revived when I read your posts!
Thanks, MaryMac!
I must say, it looks like so much fun. I’ve never tried water colored crayons before, and I am so interested now =) thanks for the post!
Well thanks everyone for the great comments! I’m so glad I did this post now as a lesson, I hope it helps encourage you to try it out. I’ve organized my categories on the right so that under “Lessons + How to’s” it has different mediums, so I’ll try to add more posts as I go.
Nancy, grab those paints and start playing! Alex, love your blog, keep drawing you’re doing great! You too Florence, i’m glad you stopped by, keep visiting! And Kelly, I thought of you when I did this post, I remembered you saying you wanted to try more, needed more advice. And I hope you get the Apron from my shop! that’d be so cool! I love the t-shirts…been having fun with this design.
More posts will come using crayons etc….keep tuned.
Thanks for the very informative and helpful post! nancy
Thanks Nancy, glad you stopped by. I’ll try to do more how to’s with these crayons in the future. They’re new to me but I’m having fun with them. I like your baby drawings, just had a peek!
Great post. I have a small set of 15 Neocolor II’s. I rip back the paper to expose half an inch or so of the colour and then I can use them either as crayons or in the tin like regular watercolours using a brush and a little pot of water (or a waterbrush). The lid is absolutely fine for mixing washes. I’m glad to see that you also cut pencils in half! I did just that with some older Derwent W/C pencils to make two very portable sketching sets!
Thanks Michael, I like the Neocolors and don’t see too much difference between the two brands I have now, just that the new ones I got have more colors. I want to be able to buy individual crayons, do you know any that are sold that way? I can’t wait to buy some Derwent Inktense blocks…oh boy, more art supplies!
I checked out your blog (nice!) and see you’re from England. My boyfriend lives in Northumberland so I’ve spent lots of time up there. Is Cambridgeshire in the South East? Hope you keep visiting here,
I love your blog! Great photos, journal pages, paintings, and I like your writing style. I have a question….Do you prefer watercolor crayons to watercolor pencils? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? I have used the pencils and like them fairly well, and am thinking of trying the crayons now.
thanks so much Karen! I’m glad you’re enjoying following my adventures in and out of the studio. The watercolor crayons are new to me, so I’m still experimenting, though I do really like them. But I don’t think I’d use them for anything detailed personally, though I know you could use them that way! I like how you can do a big wash of scribbly color or shaded and then wet it. This is good for me because when I’m out in the field I’m usually standing up and like to work fast. If I kept them sharpened at one end it would be better for details. For watercolor pencils…I think I still prefer them for my sketchbook work, but that’s also because I have a greater range of colors to pick from. They are great for smaller sketchbook works like I’ve been using them for. Also they stay a little neater in your hands, a few times I’ve had color get all over my fingers from the crayons. I have been told by a reader from England that the crayons can be had in ALL kind of colors, and bought individually. I’ll look into this more and let people know about it. I find this set of wc crayons pretty good and would recommend you get some to play with, the best way to find out. Just remember I didn’t like them at first, and needed to play with them more. Hope this helps!
Hi again Mary,
I had a quick google and these people in the UK will ship internationally via airmail. I have used them several times and the delivery is very fast within the UK so I can only presume that they will be good for you guys out there in the US. They sell sets and singles so you can get one of the starter sets perhaps and add any extras if you want to create your own preferred set of colours.
http://www.pencils4artists.co.uk/index.php?cat=Caran_D_Ache_Neocolor_II_-_Watersoluble_wax_pastel
You’re awesome Michael! Thanks so much, I’ll add their link to my Art Links page so others can use it too. Maybe I’ll wait until I’m in the UK to order some new ones, I’ll certainly have a look to see what’s available. I love new art supplies too! haha… ps. I think the area you described in your email is where my boyfriend is from too. He was born near Liverpool but they moved and he was so much happier! Near Shropshire and Darbyshire…he’s always talking about cycling there.
You’re very welcome Mary. Glad to help out 🙂