The BIGGEST Mistake Beginners Make in Watercolor Pencil 

What has your biggest struggle been with watercolor pencils?

Thank you! There isn’t a lot of instruction out there for serious watercolor pencil artists. This was helpful. More, please. 😊

Thank you for this helpful video. I love painting with watercolor and add details with watercolor pencils.

Please do not dip your watercolor pencils directly into water with the wood part. Everytime the wood goes from wet to dry to wet to dry...and some day the wood will crack. The pencil lead is not that problem...I put a little water in dish to activate the leads without wetting the wood.

Thank you! Your art is lovely. Love watercolor pencils, but it's hard to find information on using them.

My daughter just did a school project where she had trouble with dirty water and muddying her work. Just like the name...start your work as if you are doing traditional watercolors...then as you move along work more like you are working with pencils ;) Looking forward to more of these. Thank you.

Very informative video! I have Inktense pencils and the same palette , but seeing you add water on it first- wow! You showed me new ways to use them! I’ve started classes on traditional watercolor with tube paint, but I feel that I need to go back and use my pencils again! Thanks!!

I love your videos, they are so helpful! And you explain things so well. Do you ever use your watercolor pencils and combine with watercolor paint? In one finished piece?

I enjoy your videos very much specially the ones on watercolor pencil which I love to work with, your tips are so helpful. Please make some full tutorial videos. Thank you ! Edit: I subscribed ;)

watercolor pencil how to use dry😢😮

Haha yes! As you promised, great video on watercolor pencils! 😺 When I first tried them, I certainly underestimated by A LOT how pigmented quality watercolor pencils are! I now apply them very lightly, and then activate with as little water as possible (takes some trial and error to figure out the right amount), and in sections like you showed, always cleaning the brush in between sections. I have certainly enjoyed my experience with watercolor pencils so far! I tend to use them more for thumbnails. Since they have so many pre-mixed colors, they allow me to easily decide colors and values during a thumbnail, so I can later apply what I chose on a larger scale piece, this time with traditional watercolors, mixing etc. 😸

This has been so helpful since I’m a total beginner in this medium. Thank you! 😊

I just bought these pencils (36 set) along with the Polychromos 36 set. They have identical colors. I'm a beginner in watercolor (over a year) and totally new to all pencils! I didn't imagine I'd be making art with the pencils alone... just for helping with watercolor... and some for coloring books. I appreciate your teaching and explaining what you're doing and why! And how did you learn to speak English so well? My few years of French classes... 55 years ago ! 😆 I am just a fan! Thank 😊 you! With love, from a California Gramma ❤️

I have discovered a really cool technique using watercolor pencils and ink… For this technique it is monochromatic, so for example I used a dark blue watercolor pencil with turquoise ink.… So I mostly do portraits, and the result from this technique makes the portrait look like an aged photo. I draw out the rough sketch, and because the stage is somewhat erasable, it is very forgiving. Also if you have any eraser lines or smudges, they will go away mostly when you activate the pencil. then after I activate the pencil and do a light wash over everything and blend it, I wait for it to dry mostly and then go over it and re-darken some areas with the ink. The ink I use is in a brush pen. then after the inking part, I go back over it with a watercolor pencil into shading. I do not activate this part. But if you wanted to make some adjustments, you could and the ink wouldn’t budge. Leaving your picture mostly established. I always finish with shading with the watercolor pencil and not activating. The result is like an aged photo and it is so cool! I’ve done it with blue pencil in turquoise Inc., raw umber pencil and sepia ink, and Gray pencil and black ink. I hope you could try this technique and maybe do a video on it? Thank you! I love your teaching and explanation style :-)

What are your views on the use of water brush pens to activate this medium? Great channel btw 👍🏼

Great tips. Just started using the watercolor pencils and loved them!

I wish someone could answer this , I bought water colored pencils neoni , and i sometimes want to use them as normal colored pencils , without water , or anything , is that okay ? Im having hard time to blend or the colors are sometimes so dark , is it that i dont know how to color or because they are not normal colored pencils , peopel told me thta water colored pencils dont blend without water.

Wonderful!!! 🎉❤🎉

thank you

Very good tutorial, thank you.