HOW TO USE WATERCOLOR PENCILS - Guide for Beginners

i'm going to go through a complete guide of everything you need to know about watercolor pencils so that if you want to do something really loose and expressive or something a lot more realistic you will have everything you need to get started with this medium what are watercolor pencils so these pencils may look like any other set of coloring pencils but there is one key difference with watercolor pencils you use them with water this is because they have a water-soluble lead so even though you can draw really fine details with them like you would with normal coloring pencils to get that really realistic result you can also go in with water to get that more loose expressive watercolor look to your drawings this means that this medium is so flexible and you can achieve a range of styles with this supply so there are lots of different brands of watercolor pencils that you can try personally i use the faber castell albrecht dua watercolor pencils but you can get started with whatever set you can get your hands on and that suits your budget honestly you don't need to have a really professional set of watercolor pencils to get started a simple student grade set will work just fine moving on to what other supplies you need for watercolor pencil drawing firstly paper i recommend using watercolor paper and a lot of the time we will be adding water to our pencil shading so you want a paper that's suitable for adding water to it you'll also need some paint brushes a jar of water and a towel to dry your brushes on now you don't need lots of different brushes just a couple of round paint brushes that are different sizes will work fine for this now as these are pencils we will also need to sharpen them so i like to use my derwent super point manual sharpener and this helps to get my pencils really nice and sharp so i can get lots of fine details with them and your pencils will get pretty blunt when you're using them with water as well so it's always handy to have a good sharpener on hand when using this medium now moving on another key supply that i use whenever i'm doing something with water is tape so i like to use washi tape to help just secure the edges of my paper to my desk to help prevent the paper from buckling and warping now that we've covered the supplies you'll need let's talk about some basic techniques for how to use watercolor pencils because there is a range of different methods that you can actually use with these pencils to get different effects textures and looks to your drawings or paintings and there's many different sorts of methods that i use depending on the look that i want to get i will use a certain method for more realistic drawings and then a completely different set of techniques for something that is a lot looser and more expressive so let's dive into the main different methods that i like to use when using watercolor pencils and how you can apply these to your own paintings so the first method is actually the most common one that i like to use this is the method that i use most often and so this is where you go in with your pencils and you use them to add your basic layers of shading and build up the colors just like you would with typical coloring pencils so not using any water yet just going in with the pencil leads and actually shading in and blocking in where those different colors are where the individual sort of details are not adding too much detail at this stage but just getting in the main changes in colors and i like to make sure that i've got enough pigment down on the paper before i actually go and blend with water so that we get nice rich vibrant colors then once i've got in that first layer of shading i go in with just some clean water on my paintbrush and i start to blend out that shading and you can see that the water really activates the pencil lead and turns it into watercolor it no longer looks like pencil and it fills in all of the white grain of the paper and gives really vibrant colors to our paintings and when i'm blending i like to work from light to dark to try and avoid muddying the colors i make sure to clean my brush between blending different colors as well so then once you've blended with water it's very important that you wait for your painting to dry before you then go back in on top with more layers of the pencil and i basically treat the the first layer of shading and blending with water as getting that foundation in just sort of getting in the colors and the basic shapes and then i use the pencils afterwards to add all of the extra detail on top and create those textures that really give a realistic look to your drawing and of course if you're not going for a realistic style you can get rid of some of that detail and let it be more loose but i love adding lots of details with the pencils with those really sharp pencils after i've blended with water and once it has dried and i've found that this gives a really realistic look to your drawings and it makes it really quick because you're blending with water and that's really fast so the second way that you can actually use your watercolor pencils is by dipping them in water first to actually sort of soften that lead and what this does is it makes the pencil more intense when you apply it to the paper because it's already wet more pigment comes down onto the paper so this is really good if you want those bold vibrant details and you want to use the pencil to maintain that control of that sort of fine pencil lead and you don't want to have to activate your details with water if you want to create those details but still get a really solid painterly look by getting a heavy coverage of pigment down because you can see that you get a much more intense result and intense color payoff when you soak the pencil in water before adding details than if you just use the pencil dry now the third way that you can actually use these pencils is just as coloring pencils themselves you don't actually have to add water to them at all in most cases i choose to add water to add that vibrancy but you definitely don't have to you can just use them as coloring pencils in the same way you would with normal colored pencils another neat trick that i actually like to do which i'm showing here is i actually like to pull some of the color off my pencil using the paintbrush and actually use the paint paintbrush to add details to my paintings or drawings whatever you want to clasp them as and this is a great way to get that intense color and use a small paintbrush to get in those details i use this method quite a lot especially if i'm combining it with the wet on wet painting technique that i'll show you in a little bit you can also pull color directly off of the pencil and use it to mix up a larger amount of watercolor paint on a separate palette like i'm doing here so i just added clean water to the palette and i'm pulling off bits of that color onto the brush and mixing it in with the water and this is great if you want to add a wash of color to a large area and you want to make sure that you're having a consistent color washed throughout the painting you don't want to do all of the shading with the pencil and then activate it with water if you just want a smooth base wash that looks very much like a watercolor painting then this is a great way to do it but really i recommend experimenting with your pencils there's so many different techniques and tricks that you can do with them and different effects that you can get so really have fun playing around with this medium one of the most challenging things about using watercolor pencils is knowing how to get a smooth blend so one thing that you want to keep in mind is how much water you are using if you use too much water then it's going to be really hard to control the blending process and you can actually really dilute the color of your pencil shading if you use too much water whereas on the other hand if you use too little water then you can end up with a very streaky and patchy result if you don't have enough water on your brush to blend out all of your shading that's why it's really important to make sure you're using just the right amount of water to blend out the shading without diluting the color too much and keeping the actual process easy to control but don't worry this can take a bit of practice to get right and to know what the right amount of water to use is just experiment and get a feel for what gives you the best results now let's go through a few more tips on blending watercolor pencils firstly i always try to blend from the lightest area to the darkest area so when you're blending a certain section always blend where the highlights are first where the lightest color is first and work your way to blending towards the darkest areas this will help preserve those highlights and stop you from actually blending any of the watercolor pencil onto those lighter areas and it will just help keep those values as they're meant to be and not make the darks end up too light or the lights end up too dark also you'll want to be really careful when you're blending multiple colors that are touching each other because it can be really easy to end up with muddy colors and to mess up your blending if you're not careful that's why again i recommend starting with a clean paintbrush and i want i like to focus on blending one color out first so in this case i'm blending the orange and then i clean my brush and start to blend out the other color the purple and then i like to slowly fade them in together very carefully using a brush that hasn't got too much water on so it's easy to control that blending process until i've got a nice even gradient where it nicely transitions between the two colors another way you can get really smooth washes of color and color gradients and transitions is by adding water to your paper before you add any of your pencil or any pigment and this is the wet on wet method so you add water where you want the paint to be and then you can just pull some of that color off your pencil using your paintbrush and add it onto the wet surface of the paper and as you can see once the paint touches the paper it very naturally flows and blends together and you don't get any harsh edges when you start adding darker versions of that color or even other colors into the mix if you if the surface of the paper is still wet the colors will nicely bleed together and you'll get a very smooth result now for the final part of this video i actually want to go through how you can use all of these techniques that i've showed you in an actual full piece of artwork so i'm going to be demonstrating how i paint a nice loose rose now the first thing that i like to do is actually select and test the pencils that i want to use for the artwork and i particularly like to make sure that the colors are accurate to what i need once i've activated them with water because watercolor pencils the color can look different when you add water than it does when it's just the dry pencil lead so i definitely recommend doing a swatch chart of the pencils once they've been activated with water as well so you can have a clear idea of what your color is going to look like once you've blended it out with water okay so for the rose i start off by going in with all of my pencils and i actually just start to work on shading in where the different colors and values are within each of the petals and i'm sort of approaching it one petal at a time and i'm leaving the lightest areas just white just letting the white of the paper show through for the highlighted lightest parts of each petal and i just added the watercolor pencil where the mid tones and shadows are and i made sure to layer enough of the pigment so that when i blend it out with water i get a nice vibrant intense color now i'm blending out that shading with water and i'm just using a small round paint brush to do this and you can see that sometimes when i'm blending out with the water whilst that area is still wet i just pick up some of the color from the pencils if i decide that it needs to go a bit darker so that is using that wet and wet method that i showed you when i did the little heart demo earlier and you don't need too much water on your brush and make sure that you are blending from the lightest to darkest areas of each petal keep in mind as well that you don't actually have to blend out every single part of the petal and add paint everywhere in my rose painting here you can see that i actually do leave little bits of white of the paper showing through for the highlights and for the edges of some of the petals to help add that separation between each of the petals especially as we get towards the center of the rose where the petals are more clustered together so don't feel like you need to add water everywhere and then the final step that i actually like to do is go back in with my pencils once that layer has dried and use it to add those details and to define certain areas of the rose a bit more you can also use it to darken up some shadows and get those intense darker values in there if your flower or whatever artwork you're doing if it's looking a bit light you can always adjust the values within this final step of the process and you can go in with your water again and blend out again if you need to you can do that multiple times or you could just use the pencils at this stage to add final details like veins on the petals and to neaten up edges and so that is how i like to use watercolor pencils to create a full piece of artwork if you are particularly interested in drawing realistically with watercolor pencils then check out this video next where i give a lot more tips on that thank you guys for watching and i'll see you in the next video bye everybody

Channel: Kirsty Partridge Art

Views: 592,755

Keywords: watercolour pencils, watercolor pencils, watercolor pencil tutorial, watercolor pencils for beginners, how to watercolor pencils, how to use watercolour pencils, how to use watercolor pencils for beginners, watercolour pencil tutorial, watercolour pencil tutorial beginner, how to draw realistic with watercolor pencils, how to draw with watercolor pencils, how to paint with watercolor pencils, watercolor pencil guide, watercolor pencil techniques, watercolor pencil tips and tricks

Id: FuBMpRaz1Tg

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 28 2022