You can just put the whole chunk in and use it like a cake of watercolor. Or sharpen the crayons with a pencil sharpener and then you have thinner pieces to dissolve.. I cut up Daniel smith watercolor sticks and put the chunks right into my pans. They last a long time and are very pigmented.
Have you tried the Neocolor plastic palette by Caran d’ache? Any plastic with a bit of tooth will do, but you ‘colour’ onto the plastic palette, either pure or a mix of colours. Then with a wet brush you’ve got wonderful Neocolor paint in whatever colours you need. They can just dry on there and be reused and because you are just rubbing the Neocolor on the palette there is no mess or waste. ❤❤
Lindsay of The Frugal Crafter does something a bit like this - she collects the shavings when she sharpens her neocolor 2 crayons and stores them in a palette similar to yours. I thought it was a good way to get the maximum use out of water-soluble media, I'm tempted to see if I can do something similar with my favourite inktense pencils.
For fun! For the sheer joy of playing with colour! Because I can - if you get it, you get it! There's still plenty left in stick form, but who says that has to be my only reason 🙂
I use Mungyo watercolour crayons and the shades of red are really vibrant which I don't find in my other tubes of cakes. I can totally see me doing this for the colours I love. It is perfect for a personalized palatte.
I wonder if they can be metled with a heat gun or something to get them to be smooth. It's such a nice idea to use your neocolors like that espacially if you don't use them very often.
Wow, this was so interesting. I never would have thought to fill a whole palette with these! I don’t use my Neocolor IIs very often, but one thing I love about them is that you can get a creaminess/thickness/opacity which is largely impossible with watercolor, and you’re right, it’s more like gouache. Sophie McPike’s artwork is so vibrant. I saw another commenter mention the Caran d’Ache plastic palette - I was going to mention that too. It’s a flat palette with a thumbhole, but with some texture so it sort of “files” off the crayon, which you rub against it. I never ended up using it much, and I like this idea better! Random observation - I have realized that the Neocolor II crayons must have a very very thin layer of non-water-soluble wax on the outside, as they do not dissolve even if you handle them with wet fingers, or if you try to brush a wet brush on the outside in an area which hasn’t been worn down. So, I guess you could never get your mixture perfectly smooth unless you used heat to actually melt the wax, and that part would still remain behind in your palette as you use up the rest.
Sophie's work is so lovely isn't it?! Yes, I have the Caran D'Ache palette, thanks, though I've not used it much either... That's really interesting about a coating on the Neocolor II's - good to know, thank you!
Now time to go the extra step and get a mortar and pestle and just grind them back into pigment and make watercolors from that! (This is a joke. lol) Anyways, this is a great idea, I never even touch the few neocolor 2 I bought, so maybe I'll just shove em into a palette.
Haha - I started imagining doing it when I read that! I have a mortar and pestle because I like making curries from scratch, but I might have some interesting coloured curries after that!!
I did the same thing around, I think, 2021. Up until then I was coloring with Copic markers, coloring pencils, and watercolor pencils. However, I was watching more and more watercolor videos and before I spent any money on watercolors I decided to make a paint palette with my Neocolor II. I used parchment paper, a knife, and a crafting heat tool to help me in the process. I snapped the sticks of Neo II. Then softened them with the heat tool. Cut it into smaller pieces on the parchment paper, gently reheated it, then pressed the pieces into my palette. Worked great.
I do this with the shavings of my watercolour pencils. I sharpen my pencils and keep the coloured lead shavings and when tips break i keep those too and add them to my pallete. The shavings mix in easier but the broken points do mix in with some help from a toothpick.
I’ve only just started to watch this but I did this a few years ago and grated each bit and put each colour into a one of those containers like everyone was using for gouache a few months ago? The one with the silicone lid, but much larger. Then I added hot water to them and let them sit for a few days till they dried out. I still have them somewhere and if I had to do it again I would sharpen them and use the shavings instead…I’m sure it would be less messy that way! 😂Sophie McPike does this? I really should pay more attention seeing I’m one of her patrons 😂
Haha, that's great! I've come very late to the game 🤣 I'm not sure I want to let mine dry out though - because wouldn't that just be like re-wetting the equivalent of a Neocolor II stick again? There are pictures of her palette with them, in her last few Instagram posts, I think.
I tried this out with some of my old crayons! I actually used my old nicorette gum packets as a little palette pots 😂 they are perfect little squares but a bit flimsy. I also had some of the old derwent artbar crayons, not sure if I’ve ever seen them on this channel (they’ve been discontinued a few years at least) but they turn into paint even faster and better than the caran d’ache ones somehow! I had process colours and the crayons themselves were brittle (perhaps because they are old) but as soon as they touch water they turn into really vibrant thick paint like gouache right out of the tube. I have a feeling they were a underperforming competitor to neo colours before derwent redirected to inktense heavily. But if you ever come across them, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
That's very inventive!! I've not heard of the Derwent ones I'm afraid - other than art materials I had from my teens, I've only been getting into art again in a small way in the last few years, but mainly just this year.
I love painting out of pans, not sticks , not directly from tubes. Don’t know why, just something satisfying taking them out of pans. Maybe stems from my love of eyeshadows 🤣 I have three sticks of neocolors That I have not used in years. I am going to do this. ❤️ I have DS watercolour sticks (price was the deciding factor for this purchase as opposed to a tube) but DS is holy for me😛 atm. Maybe in 5 years that stick too will face its maker….um…a pan.
I have gradually come round to pans, as I started it with tubes squeezed out each time. Glad you're going to give it a go! I haven't had any if the Daniel Smith sticks yet, maybe next time I run out of one, I try them instead.
Like the “Easter” bouquet. The colours are cheerful, interesting how colours are used differently to how they were intended! Again mix & match techniques are wondrous! Very creative. Thanks
I'll update you, yes. So far, after a couple of days, they have definitely dried out quite a bit. I did add a drop of essentials oil to each well too, to try and avoid mould forming.
I have the 84 set of these and pencil sharpened them into half pans. Squished them down with water, then topped up repeating until the pans were full. I now find I use these pans instead of the sticks. I would say each pan only used approx 1/4 of a stick
