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John the Monkey
May 19th, 2012, 01:13 PM
I've been messing about with paint lately.

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This little guy was outlined with regular pencil (0.5mm (HB/#2) lead in a Parker Jotter) - watercolour pencil went on the page dry, and was then blended with a wet brush.

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This aristocratic Stoat was outlined similarly, but I used the facing page of the sketchbook I was using as a palette. In this technique, the dry watercolour pencil goes onto the palette page, is blended there, and then "lifted" with a brush and applied in washes to the picture. I like working that way better, I think, and the facing page ends up looking like this;

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which has a charm of its own :) You can also test that the colour blend you have in mind is going to work as a watercolour wash too - notice the brush strokes on the palette page where I'm doing just that.

The second sketch uses Derwent "Academy" watercolour pencils, which I'd wholeheartedly recommend - useful set of colours in the 12 pencil box (£6 ish over here, but worth the money compared to cheaper pencils), and nice to work with too.

I'm using an A6 sketchpad, so these don't take long to do at all (30 minutes or so, depending on how many times you want to go over the washes, and how patient you are about letting them dry). It's good fun, and the materials aren't expensive - have a go!

dannzeman
May 19th, 2012, 02:04 PM
Very nice!

Bogon07
May 20th, 2012, 04:44 PM
I've always wondered about those watercolour pencils.

Your results are pretty impressive so I may have to test some out in the near future thanks to your inspiration.

eriquito
May 20th, 2012, 11:11 PM
Mr. Monkey, very nice!! I've tried my hand at watercolor (or colour) pencils in the past. I think I've always used too much water, maybe. Perhaps I'm just not talented or very adept.

Is it important to use very little water?

John the Monkey
May 21st, 2012, 01:38 AM
Thanks all.

Bogon - my limited experience suggests it's worth springing for the pencils made by art supply companies. The Derwent set blends much more nicely than the first set I used, and the colours are better (if you're used to other media, I think they'll be more familiar to you too, as the colours are the ones you seem to see in artist's pan sets).


Mr. Monkey, very nice!! I've tried my hand at watercolor (or colour) pencils in the past. I think I've always used too much water, maybe. Perhaps I'm just not talented or very adept.

Is it important to use very little water?

I'd stress that I'm no expert - I was a pencil and ink man until I decided to dig the first set of pencils (used for the Fox sketch) out of storage a couple of weeks ago, and rarely coloured with anything! I think, though, it depends on what you're trying to do. A lot of water will let you move the colour around the page easily - the downside of that is that it will move until the water dries too! There's a couple of places where you can see "globs" of colour on the drawings above, and I think that's what happened there. As watercolour is transparent, I prefer to use a small amount of water in applying paint to the picture, and build up colour in several washes - that works ok on the stoat's head (I think) but not so much on his jacket.

If you're using a palette page, definitely use plenty of water to blend the colours - you can always pick up more or less on your brush when you come to transfer the paint to the page.

Derwent have some pdfs & a youtube channel that's worth a look;
http://www.pencils.co.uk/hints.aspx?mid=1241

(Although that's a slippery slope - I find myself looking at their "Inktense" range, and thinking I could do some interesting things with those...)

KrazyIvan
May 21st, 2012, 08:52 AM
Good stuff there JtM.

eriquito
May 21st, 2012, 09:53 AM
Thank you for the addition info Mr. Monkey. You've encouraged me to try my hand at this once again.

Love the Stoat!!

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