How to Use Watercolor Pencils

Although watercolor pencils look like ordinary colored pencils, they’re actually made with water-soluble pigments. A touch of water instantly transforms their marks and makes them look just like watercolor paint. In this guide, we’ll explain what watercolor pencils are, recommend some of the best ones for art, and even give you specific techniques for how to use them.

Table of Contents

What Are Watercolor Pencils?

Watercolor pencils are similar to colored pencils. However, they use water-soluble binders to hold their components together, rather than wax or oil. This allows the colors to spread like watercolor paint when painted over with water, but it also makes the pencils more difficult to blend without the use of water.

Although one might think they are simply watercolor paint in pencil form, watercolor pencils are different from watercolor paints in a few important ways.

First, it’s best to use fewer layers of light color with watercolor pencils. Heavy layering can lead to a muddy effect. Not every pencil brand behaves the same way, so we encourage you to experiment to see how much layering your pencils support.

Second, it is often impossible to completely remove all watercolor pencil marks from your art, even if you use a lot of water. These pencil marks help add texture and distinguish watercolor pencil art from watercolor paintings.

Last, watercolor pencils typically dry more quickly than watercolor paints. You may have to work faster than you’re used to in order to get the most out of your pencils.

Why Use Watercolor Pencils?

Watercolor pencils have several characteristics that make them an excellent choice for using on their own or with other media. We’ve compared them to both watercolor paints and regular colored pencils in the table below.

Watercolor Pencils	Watercolor Paints
Can be sharpened for fine detail Unique texture from pencil strokes Can be used dry Easily portable with minimal mess	Require small brushes for detail No pencil stroke texture Cannot be used dry Slightly messier and more difficult to travel with (though still portable)
Watercolor Pencils	Colored Pencils
Can cover more paper with less work Easier to lighten color (while still wet) Can be blended into a watercolor painting	Require careful effort to fully cover a large area of paper Often difficult to erase or lighten color Will have a “wax resist” effect on paint; difficult to paint over

The Best Watercolor Pencils

The best watercolor pencils produce vivid color and come in a wide range of hues. Vibrant pencils can create wide ranges of intense to softer color when used with varying pressure or washes of water. An extensive color range, meanwhile, lets you find the perfect color even if it’s hard to blend.

Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils

Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils come in 120 vivid, high-quality shades.

Shop Now

Named in honor of German artist Albrecht Dürer, these professional-quality watercolor pencils from Faber-Castell contain only the highest-quality pigments. This gives them vivid color and excellent lightfastness to prevent your art from fading over time. The lightfastness of each color is indicated by a series of asterisks on the body of the pencil.

Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils come in an extraordinary range of colors, all of which are standardized between other Faber-Castell products, including colored pencils, brush pens, and fineliners. You can quickly and easily mix and match colors for your multimedia projects.

Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Pencils

Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Pencils are exceptionally vibrant and smooth.

Shop Now

As their name suggests, Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Pencils are designed to produce museum-quality artwork. Their thick, exceptionally vibrant and creamy cores are made with highly concentrated pigment that spreads very well. Like the Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer, the lightfastness rating of each pencil is printed on the barrel. Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle pencils come in over seventy colors.

Caran d'Ache Technalo Pencils

Caran d'Ache Technalo Pencils contain water-soluble graphite.

Shop Now

Caran d'Ache Technalo Pencils are not technically watercolor pencils, but they are something else just as special—water-soluble graphite pencils. This allows you to both draw and paint with graphite to produce beautifully smooth shading and wash effects. They erase like other graphite pencils when first applied, but resist erasing after they have been activated with water.

Caran d'Ache Technalo Pencils come in B and 3B lead grades. Read our guide to The Best Graphite Drawing Pencils to learn more about these and other graphite pencils.

Watercolor Pencil Supplies

Watercolor pencils can be used by themselves, but a few more supplies will help you get the most out of them. Here are the supplies you should have on hand for the pencils to work their best.

Watercolor Paper

It's best to use watercolor paper with watercolor pencils.

Shop Now

Use sturdy paper that can stand up to getting wet and won’t absorb water too quickly. Watercolor paper is best because it is thicker than typical sketching paper and is treated with sizing that controls how quickly it absorbs water. Global Art Fluid Watercolor Paper, wirebound Global Art Field Watercolor Journals, and Stillman & Birn Sketchbooks in the Beta, Delta, and Zeta series are all excellent choices.

Read our guides to The Best Watercolor Supplies For Beginners and our Introduction to Watercolor Techniques to learn more about watercolor paper.

Water, Paper Towels, & Masking or Washi Tape

Cup of water, paper towel, and washi tape.

Don't forget to have water, paper towels, and washi tape handy.

Shop Now

Water isn’t just needed to activate dry watercolor pencil marks—you’ll use it to clean your brush, as well as for techniques like drawing on wet paper and wetting your pencil tip. Paper towels are helpful for removing excess water and color from your paper and brush. We also recommend using masking or washi tape to tape your paper down before you start working, which we will explain further below.

We recommend mt Solids Washi Tapes, which are reliably sticky yet easily repositionable, and don’t have patterns that might distract from your art.

Brush or Water Brush

Use a paintbrush or water brush to activate pencil marks.

Shop Now

You can use either paintbrushes or water brushes to activate watercolor pencils. Medium-sized brushes like round 8 and 10 are good multi-purpose choices. They are large enough to spread color easily, yet the tips can still be formed to points for more detailed work. Large, flat brushes are ideal for spreading large areas of color quickly for backgrounds and abstract effects.

Sharpener

Look for a sharpener that won't break watercolor pencils' soft leads.

Shop Now

A good sharpener will shave your watercolor pencils to a sharp point without breaking their soft leads. We recommend the reliable Kum No. 410 Magnesium and Maped Metal Wedge pencil sharpeners, which fit even slightly wider-than-usual pencils like the Faber-Castell and Caran d’Ache ones. Read our guide to The Best Pencil Sharpeners for more ideas.

Optional Supplies

Graphite pencil and brush pen with waterproof ink.

Graphite pencils, waterproof pens, and other tools can help with some techniques.

Shop Now

They aren’t strictly necessary, but some artists like to use graphite pencils and waterproof pens for underdrawing and tracing bold outlines. Some techniques also require special equipment, like spray bottles, small knives, and sandpaper.

Getting Started

We’ll get into more specific techniques in the next section, but these steps are all you need to get started right away with watercolor pencils.

Make a Sample Chart

Sample chart comparing wet and dry pigment.

Make a sample chart showing how each color looks when wet and dry.

Colors from watercolor pencils often look very different after they’ve been activated with water. We recommend making a sample chart that shows what each of your colors looks like when it’s dry and when it’s wet so that you won’t be caught off guard.

Stretch Your Paper

Stretch the paper before you begin.

Although it’s designed to withstand heavy applications of water, watercolor paper still needs preparation to keep it from warping as you work. Wet both sides of the paper and blot away any excess so that the paper is thoroughly damp but not dripping. Wet four pieces of masking or washi tape and secure the paper to your work surface, covering all the edges of the paper. Allow the paper and tape to dry completely before you continue.

If you want to skip this step, pick up a Global Art Fluid Watercolor Paper Easy-Block. Each sheet in the pad is temporarily glued to the block to prevent warping.

Plan Your Drawing

Start with a preliminary sketch to plan your drawing.

Before you start drawing in earnest, it’s a good idea to make a rough sketch of what you want your picture to look like. This helps you see which areas will need more color and which should be kept light. You can use almost anything for your initial sketch—watercolor pencils, graphite pencils, or even waterproof pens. You can also sketch on another piece of paper or in a sketchbook if you’re scared to waste watercolor paper.

Fill In Colors

Fill in the basic colors of your piece.

Once you have an idea of how your picture should look, it’s time to color it in. Draw with the watercolor pencils like you would regular colored pencils, but don’t worry about filling in every space. If there are areas you want to be as light as possible, leave them blank. The color will spread when activated with water, which allows you to blend nearby hues into light areas.

Be mindful of the direction and shape of your pencil strokes as you draw. Some of the marks will show in the finished piece. Think about the textures and contours of the elements in your picture, and follow those lines with your pencil.

Activate the Pencil Colors

Activate the colors, following the directions of the pencil strokes.

Activate the colors, following the shape of the pencil strokes.

Next, activate the colors with a brush and clean water. Follow the shape and direction of your pencil strokes to give your piece a more cohesive look. You can minimize the appearance of pencil strokes by working the color more with your brush, but be careful not to overwork it or the paper may pill or fray.

Layer to Add Depth and Detail

Layer on more color to build shading, intensify colors, and add detail.

After your first application of water is dry, layer more color over your work to further develop your piece. Add more of the same hue to deepen existing colors, use contrasting colors to add shading, and define details with more precise marks. Blend the new colors with water just as before. Repeat this process as necessary until your piece is finished, but don’t use too many layers. Heavy layering may muddy the colors.

Work Light to Dark

Move from light colors to dark when wetting pencil colors.

Always start with lighter colors and then move on to darker areas when you activate pencil colors. This prevents the darker colors from overwhelming the light areas. You can read more about this in our Introduction to Watercolor Techniques.

How To Use Watercolor Pencils

Watercolor pencils can make very different effects depending on how you use them. These are some of our favorite watercolor pencil techniques here at JetPens—try them out, experiment, and see what works for you!

Ways to Control Color Intensity

Draw with hard or light pressure to make intense or delicate hues.

1. Vary Pencil Pressure

One of the most natural ways to control color intensity is to press harder if you want the pencil to deposit more color and use lighter pressure when you want a more delicate hue. Be aware that lines made with heavy pressure won’t dissolve as thoroughly as those made with light pressure, so they’ll be more visible in your piece.

Draw more loosely or densely to control color saturation.

2. Draw Dense or Loose Lines

Another way to vary the saturation of your colors is to use even drawing pressure but add more or fewer marks on the page. Several lines drawn close together will make more vivid colors when activated than fewer lines drawn further apart.

Dip pencil tips into water for intense details.

3. Wet Pencil Tips

For intense details, dip the tip of your pencil into water before drawing. The resulting marks will be brighter and more bold than color from a dry pencil. Color applied this way is difficult to blend, so it’s best for finishing touches.

Blot wet color with a dry brush or paper towel to lighten it.

4. Use Lifting to Lighten Color

If you activate a color only to realize that it’s too dark, don’t despair—but do act quickly. Blot the area with a dry brush or paper towel while it is still wet. This absorbs, or “lifts,” excess color.

To lift dry color, paint on some plain water and allow it to sit to reactivate the color before blotting. This won’t remove as much color as lifting while wet.

Ways to Mix Colors and Add Shading

1. Layering by Wetting Between Each Color Application

Allowing each layer to dry before adding another lets underlying colors show through.

There are two ways to layer with watercolor pencils. The first way is to apply one color, activate it, and allow it to dry before applying and activating another color over it. This is similar to layering with watercolor paint in that the colors don’t actually mix. Instead, the underlying color shows through the color on top to produce a new hue. This method of layering is more prone to leaving hard edges between colors and can be time consuming since you have to wait for each layer to dry.

2. Layering Multiple Colors Before Wetting

Multiple dry colors layered together will mix when activated.

The second way to layer with watercolor pencils is to apply multiple dry colors over each other before activating them with water. This method is faster than the previous technique and blends the colors more thoroughly so that the individual hues don’t show through. The effect can be less nuanced than wetting between each layer, but it’s a great way to mix a new color.

3. Blending

Blend adjacent colors together for smooth transitions.

Blending allows you to make smooth transitions between nearby colors. After you have applied the color, use a wet brush to spread the lighter hue into the darker color until they form a smooth gradient. Make sure that you don’t blend from dark to light, or the darker color will obscure the light one.

Ways to Apply Color

1. Draw on Wet Paper

Drawing on wet paper produces intense color and blooming effects.

The most common way to apply watercolor pencil is to draw with a dry pencil on dry paper, but you can also draw with a dry pencil directly onto wet paper. This technique is similar to drawing with a wet pencil tip in that it delivers intense colors, but it also produces softer, fuzzier lines that are harder to control. Since the color is activated as soon as it touches the wet paper, it won’t spread very well after it has been allowed to dry.

2. Scrape Color Onto Wet Paper

Use a knife or sandpaper to scrape pencil color onto wet paper.

This technique is a fun way to form speckled and dappled effects. Start with a wet surface. Then scrape color from a pencil with a knife or sandpaper, allowing it to fall onto the wet paper. This works especially well to depict natural phenomena like falling snow and ocean spray. You can also make streaky textures by brushing over the pencil flakes before the background dries.

If you are applying a color that is lighter than the background, wait until the underlying color is dry and then re-wet it before scraping the pencil. This prevents the light color from blending into the darker background and disappearing. If you are using a darker color on a light background, you can work directly with the wet background color.

3. Pick Up Color From the Pencil Tip

Use your brush to paint with color directly from the pencil tip.

To avoid the appearance of pencil strokes in your art, simply use a wet brush to pick up color directly from the tips of your pencils and paint as you normally would. This is a great way to make watercolor pencil art look like traditional watercolors. It’s also a helpful technique for those who are more used to painting than drawing.

4. Use a Paper Palette

Paper palettes are easy to travel with.

Another way to make your pencil drawings look like watercolors is to work from a paper palette. Heavily apply the colors you want to use to a piece of paper. Then, pick up color with a wet brush and paint with it. This can be very convenient for short trips since the paper takes up less space than pencils. Although paper palettes allow you to mimic the look and feel of using watercolor paints, it’s not a direct one-to-one substitution—watercolor pencils still dry more quickly than paints and work better with fewer layers.

Ways to Use Water

1. Control the Visibility of Pencil Lines

Minimize pencil lines by working them with a wet brush.

To minimize pencil lines so that the art looks more like watercolors, use more water and work the color with your brush to pull it up from the paper. Don’t go overboard, though—overworking can damage both the paper and the brush. To keep pencil lines more visible, use less water and don’t work the color any more than necessary. This lets you harness the pencil lines to indicate texture and movement.

2. Use a Spray Bottle

Spray drawings with water to blend them without a brush.

To wet large areas of color quickly and give them a spontaneous feel, apply water with a spray bottle instead of a brush. Make sure to tape the paper down first to prevent it from buckling and causing the colors to run together. Add water gradually and check between sprays until you’ve achieved the look you want. You can then leave the drawing as-is for a soft-focus effect or add further definition after the paper dries.

Ways to Use Watercolor Pencils With Watercolor Paint

1. Add Detail To Watercolor Paintings

Watercolor pencils perfectly complement watercolor paint.

Use watercolor pencils to add detail to watercolor paintings.

In addition to making beautiful art in their own right, watercolor pencils are a perfect complement to watercolor paints. Their ability to be sharpened to a fine point makes them ideal for adding fine details to paintings that are difficult to achieve with a brush. In addition, outlines made with watercolor pencils help define shapes without the prominence of ink. Because the pencil marks are water-soluble, they can be blended into the surrounding areas to look like an integral part of the piece.

2. Use Light-Colored Watercolor Pencils For Underdrawing

Sketch with light-colored watercolor pencils instead of graphite.

The pencils will activate when you paint, blending with the final piece.

Artists often make preparatory drawings called underdrawings before painting. Sketches made with graphite pencils may show through light areas if they’re not erased, but you can get around this by using light-colored watercolor pencils instead. The colors you use for the underdrawing will activate when you start to paint, becoming part of the finished art and giving it a unified look.

3. Use Dark-Colored Watercolor Pencils for Value Studies

Sketch with dark-colored pencils and spread the color to show dark and middle values.

The value study gives the painting a cohesive background.

Artists also often use value studies to render a scene in lights and darks, which reveals its underlying structure independent of color. To quickly make value studies with watercolor pencils, use dark colors to draw the initial sketch. Then wet and spread the color to indicate where the dark and medium-dark areas should be, leaving the lightest spots blank. When the value study is dry, paint directly over it to give your piece a cohesive look with built-in shadows.

Compare These Pencils

Do you want to review all of our recommended pencils at once? Use our comparison tool to see their specifications side by side.

More Resources

Conclusion

Watercolor pencils combine the best features of colored pencils and watercolor paints, allowing artists to achieve highly precise marks, textured lines, and gentle washes with one medium. Have you tried using watercolor pencils? Tell us about your favorite techniques in the comments below!

Shop This Post

Watercolor Pencils
Product		Colors	Add to Cart
	Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils	120	Add Items to Cart
	Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils	76	Add Items to Cart
	Caran d'Ache Technalo Pencils	2 (B, 3B)	Add Items to Cart
Watercolor Pencil Supplies
Product		Sizes	Add to Cart
	Global Art Fluid Watercolor Paper	4" x 6", 6" x 6", 6" x 8"	Add Items to Cart
	Stillman & Birn Sketchbooks	3.5" x 5.5", 5.5" x 8.5", 7" x 10"	Add Items to Cart
	Global Art Field Watercolor Journals	6" x 6", 7" x 10", 8" x 8"	Add Items to Cart
	mt Solids Washi Tapes	7 mm x 7 m, 15 mm x 7 m	Add Items to Cart
	Escoda Brushes	0, 2, 4, 6	Add Items to Cart
	Pentel Vistage Water Brushes	Fine, Medium, Broad	Add Items to Cart
	KUM No. 410 Magnesium Pencil Sharpener	N/A	Add to Cart
	Maped Metal Wedge Pencil Sharpener	N/A	Add to Cart
	Staedtler Mars Lumograph Graphite Pencils	N/A	Add Items to Cart
	Pentel Pocket Brush Pens	N/A	Add Items to Cart

Posts by Category

Related Posts

Search

Stay Connected

How to Use Watercolor Pencils

Related Posts

Gift Card

Last Chance

Customer Service

About JetPens

Stay Connected