How to use Watercolor Pencils with a Waterbrush (video)

Watercolor Pencils are a great way to add color to your field sketches. Applying the pencils is intuitive and the waterbrush makes field application easy. However, watercolor pencils can perform in unexpected ways that can be frustrating. In this workshop, you will learn how to work with watercolor pencils to get a variety of effects and turn the bugs of the system into a feature.

During the workshop, I gave student time to draw along with the demonstrations on a handout. I have cut out the drawing time. If you are following at home, you can pause the video to give yourself time to work each step. You can download and print out the worksheet here. To see the demonstration steps with better resolution, see the following blog posts.

Douglass Iris demonstration

Northern Parula demonstration

Yosemate Landscape demonstration

In this video you will learn how to:

  • Approach a drawing with an intentional system.
  • Add shadows to a drawing without turning the drawing to mud.
  • Layer dry and wet pencil techniques.
  • Blend a small set of pencils to get a wide range of colors.
  • Predict color and value changes with water application.

Materials