Watercoloring with Pencils

 A while back I came across this video on YouTube  from HulloAlice that shares some tips on using watercolor pencils. now be advised that she starts off with all the things you should not do with watercolor pencils. And considering I had never watched a pencil video and I have done All those things that should not be done multiple times I decided this would be an interesting thing to do for the weekly throw down. You can click on these photos to enlarge them and then just use your browsers back button to keep reading.

I have in the past tried Prisma watercolor pencils, Derwent Inktense pencils and some other kind that must have been a more affordable option. ( not sure now) but, I had these Faber Castell ones on my wish list at Amazon and my son bought them for me as a gift maybe for mothers day or my birthday ( a long time ago now) and the results I had gotten with the other brands I was skeptical if they would be any better. So, today was the day that box got opened.

So I grabbed this image that had not stamped well on some Neenah to just try what I seen in the video. 

I was not all that impressed with these on this paper so, I decided to be fair I should try something on good paper. 

Found a scrap of Arches cold press 100% cotton paper and this stamp was on the wall by the table so, it had some open spaces and I decided it would work for learning. These brush tips were colored with the Faber castell pencils 

 This pink tip on the left was done with this pencil. Studio 71

The bigger pink brush in the center here was done with the derwent pencil. and Its a close second to the faber castell. as far as I can tell, not quite as smooth to use but, not horrible. 

That pink on the far left was done with this Prisma watercolor pencil. and this is just not something I enjoyed. it caught on the texture of the paper and just does not have that smooth melting that the faber castell and derwent do. Maybe its me.

Added a little more color to this with the faber castell pencils. I am thinking that if you were going to invest in pencils and you do not already have any I'd personally save my money and go for the faber castell and not waste the funds on the pencils that are more affordable because, dust catcher pencils that you don't use will not bring joy is just my take on it. 

 

So, that all that being said I decided that I wanted to do something perhaps a little sketchy looking to try painting with these pencils. And this Stampendous sketched Horse was the first "sketch-y" style stamp I thought of.  I used some Acorn Versafine ink thinking I was going to make it a little cinnamon colored in honor of my first horse I ever had but, these pencils I have not even done an cheat sheet yet and they turned out to be a little more yellow-ish rather then red-ish. So, this is a first layer of pencils on Arches cold press.

When the first layers dried I they seemed so pale so, I did add another layer and then a third to this. The eye on the left is bugging me I keep thinking there is too much white on it, and I am considering adding a lot more black to it.

The watercolor panel was cut with a Spellbinders 6" mat die and so was the Crafters woodgrain print. The bazzill is 6" square in real life. The sentiment here is from the Stampin Up set called Birthday Whimsy just because, I am way low on Birthday cards here.

The challenge this week is to paint what ever you would like and if you have pencils dust them off an use them. If you don't have pencils same thing, you may still paint what ever you like. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by.