I am still experimenting with the new watercolor pencils. Since there are only 12 of them, I have to use other media to be able to find the true colors of the subject I am working with.
Yesterday I saw a mushroom photo. It is a wallpaper, I don’t know who took the photo. I wanted to share the link but it is broken somehow. If you make a Google search as ‘piccry mushroom’, you can see the photo I used as reference. I also set it as featured image at the top of this post. I want to thank to the person who took this photo. It was looking so jolly that I decided to paint it.
I especially loved how the stem/stalk looked at the end. I used Crayola colored pencils, Faber Castell watercolor pencils and Faber Castell graphite sketch 4B pencil. I finished this in four hours while watching a show. That’s why it is not detailed that much.
I am still happy with watercolor pencils. It doesn’t turn out as realistic as watercolor paintings but still, it is really fun to work with.
I am planning to keep trying these new pencils with different subjects then I will write a review about them.
I am super duper happy today. Yesterday sweet sister Erica sent some presents from South Korea. She is working as an English teacher there.
Two presents were related to flower arrangements. One is a notebook and other is a fan. Flowers were pressed.
I used some tacky glue and arranged them the way I wanted. Here they are;
After completing these, I jumped over my new watercolor pencils. I was so excited to try them that I used the same outline paper I used for my previous watercolor work which is balloon flower. It turned out meh…
Watercolor pencils_Balloon flower
The above picture is on Strathmore Watercolor paper, acid free, Cold press, 140 lb (300 g). The surface of the paper is not the greatest for a smooth painting.
What is magical about watercolor pencils is, they both work as pencil and watercolor (The name is watercolor pencil, daa!). You color your drawing with pencils first and then use a brush by dipping it into a little bit of water and go over the pencil painted area. They smoothly move on the paper and spread on a big area.
I learned that, as we were waiting for one layer to dry in watercolor to apply the other layer, you should wait for watercolor pencils to dry too. Otherwise, when you try to paint over the wet area, it leaves scribbles. If you don’t push too hard on wet areas, you’ll be fine though. Good news is, wet area dries so quickly.
Today I was looking for another thing to paint and try my new, lovely pencils more. I was looking through my watercolor notebooks, then I saw my unfinished, ugly Hibiscus. Do you remember it from my previous posts? Click here;
A few weeks after writing that post, I worked on that drawing with colored pencils just to complete it. It didn’t turn out great either. Therefore, I left it again. It seems today was the day to complete it nicely. If I need to remind you the paper for that piece, it is Strathmore, mixed media paper, vellum surface, acid free, wet and dry media, 140 lb (300 g). This paper works perfect for watercolor pencils. Let me show you the transition;
Hibiscus_Transition from colored pencils to watercolor pencils
Isn’t it nice how smooth it gets by the touch of watercolor pencils?
I am so happy with the end product. The colors turned out so vibrant. I can’t wait to try another flower with these new colors. (LOVE YOU ERICA!)
There are things I want to say about watercolor pencils, but I don’t want this post get any longer. Wait for my next post for advantages and disadvantages of this media.
Art in Nature 