Choosing the Right Watercolor Pencils: Which Ones Are Best for You?

• With plenty of practice and the right technique and supplies, you can work wonders with watercolor pencils too.

Pencils vs Paints: What are the benefits of watercolor pencils?

Pros:

• Easy-to-use: I find pencils more predictable, easy-to-use, and familiar. The firm tip of a dry pencil ensures your strokes come out as predicted. The flexible, moist tipped brush can throw some unpleasant surprises. The chances of your lines going wrong are plenty.
• Portable: Pencils are easy to carry, take little space, and are definitely less messy. You don’t need a palette, multiple brushes, or lots of water to rinse your brushes.
• Exciting: Activation can be done using a brush, sponge, Q-tip, toothbrush, or a fine nozzle spray. Lots of scope for experimentation and having fun.
• Versatile: Supports several techniques, such as you can draw on dry paper and then activate, draw with a pencil dipped in water, etc.
• Excellent for mixed-media art: Watercolour pencils are valuable assets in mix-media compositions. You can use sharp-tipped pencils to add those edges and finer details that cannot be done with a brush.

• Two-in-one experience: Watercolour pencils combine the best of two media – pencils and paint! With this medium you are drawing and painting simultaneously.

Cons

• Pencils dry faster than paint and aren’t suitable for complex layered watercolour techniques.
• Pencils do not lend favorably to big-sized artwork – difficult to fill large expanse of paper with pencil strokes.

What Watercolour Pencil Supplies Do I Need?

Whether a novice or a professional, you must stock up with the right supplies. Quality matters!

The market is teeming with art provisions with prices ranging from super cheap to skyrocketing. To make it easy for you, I have suggested products that you could check out.

Watercolour Paper

Watercolour paintings need thick textured paper of a certain weight – different from your regular sketchbook sheets. Remember the paper should not buckle under water (in theory)! – 

I will address watercolour paper in separate blog posting.

What Watercolor Pencils Should I Use?

Watercolor pencils come in a wide range of shades. But they are expensive. So, I would suggest that you begin with a set of 12 basic colors and add other shades as you progress. With time, as you learn how to use watercolor pencils, you’ll know your preferences better. Pencil sets make wonderful gifts for birthday, Christmas and for other special occasions.  You could perhaps make a “wish’list”, and this could be an add-on to your art supplies.

If you have a tight budget, start with a blue, red, yellow, and black pencil. You’ll be surprised how much you can achieve with these primary colours. 

Tip: Look for brands that sell individual pencils, else you’ll end up with a bunch of rarely used shades.

I would recommend the following set if you are at the beginning of your watercolour journey: