As I spend time with Cathy Johnson‘s book Creating Nature in Watercolor: an Artist’s Guide (where I found inspiration to make bunny studies) I’m more and more interested in watercolor pencils. Especially doing mixed media sketches with water soluble pencils and watercolors together. I like the way pencil marks show when layered with watercolor.
The other night at the art supply store I picked up a few more water soluble pencils in neutrals to add to my little collection. I already had the Caran d’Ache Supracolor in Ochre, and the Stabilo All Pencil in Graphite, and wanted to try out some additional brands and colors.
The Stabilo graphite pencil is rather light, so I picked up a 4B in the Faber Castell water soluble graphite to compare. I really like the Faber Castell. And I think the two Derwent Inktense pencils I bought will be really cool to work with — the neutral tones should be versatile. I didn’t realize it when I bought them, but once activated with water these pencils become permanent. They’ll be fun for layering with watercolor washes.
For these sketches I intentionally left the pencil marks visible for texture, and didn’t work to scrub them smooth with the wet brush. I just wanted to have a very light wash and see how subtle they could be.
The materials I used on these little sketches were:
- Stabilo All Pencil in Graphite (background in upper left)
- Faber Castell water soluble graphite pencil in 4B (upper left apple)
- Derwent Inktense watercolor pencil in Payne’s Grey (lower left apple)
- Derwent Inktense watercolor pencil in Sepia Ink (upper right apple)
- Caran d’Ache Supracolor II watercolor pencil in Ochre (lower right apple — there’s also some of the Sepia Ink pencil on the shading areas)
- Fabriano Studio watercolor paper
