Mary McAndrew

I go through phases with what materials I use when I go out sketching and my love of watercolors sometimes gets pushed aside for watercolor pencils. It normally doesn’t last too long and I’m reaching for my familiar pan of watercolor paints, but for now I am in a watercolor pencil mood. So I thought I’d share with you a good lesson for people starting out with watercolor pencils or those wanting to practice.

Set up for watercolor pencil color play

I have quite a few colors but when I go into the field I try to carry as little as possible to keep the weight down. Above you can see many pencils and containers with lots of color charts, my sketchbook, waterbrush, bit of paper towel and of course the cup of coffee!  You may notice my pencils are short, I cut them in half so I have less weight and bulk in the field, keeping the other set at home or in other field kits.

Watercolor Pencil Practice - page 1

I was specifically trying to pick out colors I could use for landscapes while in England, so you’ll notice I made little ‘mountains’ with the colors to test the mixing when overlapped.  To do a color ‘spot’ with medium pressure just scribble a small area and label it with initials of the color.  Take your wet brush or waterbrush and rub into the color then keep rubbing lightly as you move the brush away; it will get lighter and you’ll create a nice color swatch. I group mine together, blues, yellows, greens etc. Between colors, either rinse your brush then wipe on paper towel, or if you’re using a waterbrush, just stroke it on the paper towel until it appears clean.

From the blue swatches at the top left, I then selected a few and lightly colored them next to it and then wet it to see if it’d look good as ‘sky’ colors. Then at the bottom right I was pleased with the test of mixing basic blues with my yellows to make various greens. If I like I could leave the green pencils behind but it does mean more layering and mixing and while in the field I try to make it so I can sketch fast.

Watercolor Pencil Practice - page 2

This picture looks paler than I’d like, I don’t have use of a scanner here so these are photographed with my camera! But anyways, at the top I was experimenting with first laying down a light blue wash then putting the green mountains on top. Then I tried purpley colors because distant mountains sometimes have that hue. Then I made up some fields and tried layers of various yellows, blues and greens. At the bottom I experimented with toning down the vibrant colors by adding charcoal grey and various reddish colors (red is opposite of green so it can tone it down)

Watercolor Pencil Practice - page 3

This page is also a bit light but you can see my colors still. I was determined to eliminate any excess green pencils if I could, so I tested them next to each other. At the top you can see I tested some browns, overlapping them in a square pattern. At the bottom is a quicky sketch in ink done at the beach, later I played with the colors to test them on it.

Well I know it’s not a thrilling post but it shows you how to get familiar with your watercolor pencils if your a beginner or very experienced and just needing to pick out some colors. Once you pick the colors you’ll use in your ‘kit’, make a small color chart of them, labeled so you can refer to it quickly until the pencil choices come easily.

A note about one of the reasons I like watercolor pencils; if you lay more than one color down dry, then wet it to blend and bring out the vibrant color, I like the grainy textures left and how you can see bits of both colors (depending on how much you rub it to blend). You can draw lines and leave them somewhat or you can shade lightly for more of a watercolor look.

So, grab your watercolor pencils and have some fun playing!