How To Use Watercolor Pencils

Art is a brilliant way of expressing some of your best kept secrets. The most amazing thing about an artistic approach is that, it is open to thousands of interpretations and that there is no ‘one’ interpretation to it. More like the complexity in life, it depicts thousands of variations; a highly subjective thing which varies from person to person, owing to the diversity in human psyche. Art, again, can be expressed in various forms. If you are someone who likes saying it with a sheet of canvas, along with a burst of colors or like imitating the world you see by etching it on to paper, then a convenient tool that aids you in such expression are watercolor pencils. Watercolor pencils are less messy when compared to the regular water paints. They are long tubular structures which can be scratched on neatly to your drawing like a crayon and then later diluted by mixing water. Read onto know all about using them and creating a masterpiece.

Using Watercolor Pencils

The most important thing to remember while using watercolor pencils is to use watercolor paper, as regular paper will get dampened when you add water to it. Watercolor papers have high absorption capabilities and dry up faster than regular papers.
The most common approach to using watercolor pencils is to loosely color an area, then add water to the area and spread it around the entire boundary of the drawing. It is important to remember that after adding water, the color would become at least two shades lighter. Therefore, in case you want the darker version of the color, then you would have to color the area more.
Watercolor pencils can also be densely layered. Therefore going for a darker version of the same color, it can be a little hard to control after the wash. Experiment a little by adding very little water and diluting it. Adding more water can make a mess out of your entire drawing.
Paint over the watercolor pencil with a brush dipped in clean water. The pencil lines will come more clearly that way. You could also dip the pencil directly into water and apply it on your drawing. By coloring your drawing like this, you get the right intensity of the color much faster.
If you want to load a paint brush with a specific color from a watercolor pencil, treat the brush tip in the same way you would a handle a pan of watercolor. Wet the brush and pick color of the pencil tip and use the paint brush to fill color to your drawing.
The best part about watercolor pencils is that you can also use them as regular crayons. Therefore you can select the areas in your drawing which need you want to change to a watercolor wash.
Make sure that the pencil is a little blunt, while laying down color, because if it is too sharp, then it will require more effort in filling the empty spaces.
Put aside a piece of watercolor paper in order to try out the colors and/or adjust the fluid on the brush. This helps a lot in bringing about controlled results.
While using the watercolor paper, make sure you use hot pressed watercolor paper as it is the only paper without any indentations or dents and has a smoother surface when compared to cold pressed and rough water color paper. Unless you need a more homemade/recycled paper appeal to your drawing, do not use rough watercolor paper.

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