How to use Watercolor Pencils for Beginners

1. Trailer: thank you for joining in and for today's class is the watercolor pencils for beginners. What you are going toe learn are some blending techniques, how to mix your colors to create fun textures and some bonus tips. This class also has three different projects that you can choose from. We have the landscape, the plant and the lemon. All of these are beginner, friendly, and also in the very beginning. I do recommend that you make a color chart with swatches for all of your pencils there. That way you can see what they look like when you add the water and after everything is dry because sometimes the colors to appear different, and now we're ready to jump right into the class. 2. Getting Started : and to first get started here. I'm going to start off with 12 basic colors that I have right here. I have two different reds and orange, two different greens, a yellow pink of black of purple. I think there's two different blues there and again these air colors. Like I said, that our basic that even if you have a small kit that only has, like 12 colors, you should be absolutely fine. You don't necessarily have to have, like, 34 or 24 or 36 colors, so you can use whatever you have here. Yeah, seal. Use a bright color first for some demonstrations here in the end, a water pen I'm gonna use as well. So first up, I'm gonna put I'm gonna start a little bit deeper on one side. I'm gonna focus on my pressure. And this was probably the equivalent to two layers here because you do want it to be nice and saturated. You could do a square or a circle. That doesn't matter. And you can use a water pen or or of Russian water. And then you can see how well that one's really, really smoothly together. And sometimes you will see a little bit of grain, a little bit of texture. You couldn't leave that for certain types of artwork if you wanted the texture. But for right now you want it nice and smooth, so you can just keep going over it with the water, you can use your little old rags or paper towel that okay, And now let's try. We use a blue, and then this one will be the gray dia solutions that will start dark here. And then you're gonna lighten up on your pressure. This time I will show a regular watercolor brush, just waited a little bit. And I'm gonna start from the light side and go backwards like this because I want this to be light. And as we go down, it's gonna get darker so you can practice your ingredients. That way it would be good practice for clouds and sky, which will we will get into a little bit. Okay, now, next up was gonna practice blending two colors together. I would say here we go with have a green start with, like, a bright spring green on one side, and then we're gonna analytic it light to keep a dark on the end, and then I'll do some yellow over here. A tip came on a little bit, a little bit. Lighters will meet in the mill. I'm gonna start in the middle and then work my way down. Same thing over here. Okay? We could blend in in the middle. 3. Blending Techniques : okay, We could blend in in the middle. Those colors were really light. Let's see. We're gonna try. I just want to make sure that you can actually see it. Gonna go back to the red enough for a little bit, and then we'll do the blue. So Well, dio some basic primaries here. And then you should get your purple in the middle there. Okay? Just so you can see here a little bit better. 21 and to the other. No. There we go. Blend in the middle. You could see it's like a really, really light purple. So they do blend really well, of course, depending on your brand, some definitely blend a little bit better than others. I know. I mentioned my brand that I'm using Here is the fantasia. I did purchase them off of Amazon and another beginner friendly as art philosophy. I think they have, like, a few different tends to choose from. And there's, like, 12 colors in each one. I think they might have a bigger set to so and let's see here. Okay, now we're gonna So that was some of the blending. Now we're gonna experiment with. There are many, many, many different ways to use watercolor pencils. So I'm just gonna go over a couple here today. I showed a few ways they're here, right there and then you couldn't put a little bit of water on the tip, and then you could paint with that. I mean, I don't really recommend, like dunking the pencil in water, because I think you're gonna end up, like, disturbing the wood and ruining it. But as you can see here, that works just fine. And you won't have any of the the scratchy line work either. This would be really, really similar to the actual, like water color paint. And while this tip is all what I'm gonna show, you can actually do a little bit of, like, texture and splashing. Give it a little tap, hard to see a camera. But I could see here the little splashes on the paper. Okay. I've even seen some people You can shave off some of the wood with an Exacto knife and they , like, flipped off little chunks. But again, that's a lot of texture. So it definitely depends on on what you're doing there. So we'll let that dry off on the side and with water colors it up. It is best to go light to dark because if you go too dark too soon, there really is. It's too hard to go back, so I do recommend working light to dark. Somebody use a different blue here, and let's say that you were working on a sky and some clouds. So you have blended out with the water, and then you can. He was a tissue tissue, a rag, just something to lift up some of the water for your highlights. That and you could see you're really nice for cloud formations. Very, very easy to do. 4. Other Techniques : okay. And one last tip here before we get into some projects. This is optional. I have seen people use watercolor pencils this way. I would only recommend it for large areas, just in case you didn't want some of the grainy texture. And whatever color is doesn't matter. So you're gonna make exceeded. This is your little palate here, here. But these two down. Okay, so we have some orange and some purple. And what, you're gonna Joe? Well, yes, actually. You need You need a little bit for the seer. So I'm gonna put a little extra. Okay, So you're gonna get this, like, nice. And what? Here and then Now that's your puddle. So you can take a little bit here and then do whatever you were going to paint on your project. Like I said, I don't highly recommend this just for, like, a big area, because it is pretty much the same thing as regular water colors. So you're kind of like defeating the point here, But, um, again, it does depend on what type of work you're doing. You can certainly do this method if you wanted to. So then you'd what? It here that would be your puddle. And then you can pick up the color and then put it anywhere on your project. This would just be like you're a little palate here that you'd be like dipping back and forth, So that's an option there took. 5. Project 1 Landscape pt1: okay up top here. I'm gonna do just, like a very easy Let's see here, we'll do some mountains. So I'm gonna dio just a couple tops here can very basic maybe here and been around. Okay. And now, if you would like little bits of snow here gonna skip the top, come down a little bit and then let's see here we're gonna dio some some of the purple. Gonna just nice, smooth strokes. Not pressing too hard, like a medium pace here. And then you can let up a little bit Practice with your pressure and then let's see move back in with the water. Now, even for these mountains, you can experiment and leave some of the texture if you'd like. Most of the time, the mountains are rough and ragged here. Some pitches. I think you're ready to brush and just use the water and let it fade out. Experiment here. I'm gonna put like a shadow in between the two, so use some blue. We'll mix it in with the purple will make it nice and colorful. Think pressure really is key. When you're working with these pencils, you could see how nicely they blend together over here on experimental really use some of the green. So I have, like, greed and dark green like green strokes down Gamel used from the deeper for some shadow areas And as everything dries you can go back and do multiple layers if you life just like regular water colors. But the pencils definitely allow you to do more details. So if you're someone who likes a lot of detail likes to do look, every little hair looking cranny, then you would probably prefer these over the other water colors, See, and up top. Like I mentioned before, I'm gonna graham a lighter blue. So it's not the same as my shadow color there. And let's say I'm gonna make we'll make like a big puddle over here like I was talking about for the large sky area. I'm gonna grab a little bit, figure fresh. We're gonna take the pigment from here. You completed over here. That was blue. Might be too late. Okay, so I need something a little bit darker. Let's see. This will try this one. There we go. 6. Project 1 Landscape pt2 : okay. And because this is such a colorful picture here, let's experiment. Maybe we'll turn this into, like, a sunset sky. So I'm enough, But a little bit of orange to here mix, Who needs to be sharpened? Let a little bit deeper yellow here. The attainment of pink. My clip. Okay. Make sure the brush is clean and, um, a start up here in the corner again. Cleaning the brushes between the color is just to make sure you can see everything. You don't want everything to turn one color. So you just watch and see Yes, everything is blending. Could drag it over into the blue. - Okay . And this last little piece, I'm gonna put so of purple, which is another mountain over here. Okay? And I'm gonna let all of this dry up before I could do anymore. And that line right there that happened because there waas water there, and then I went over it with my pencil. Um, again, I don't really recommend doing that because, as you could see, it leaves a harsh line. I've seen some people to that before. Really? Over here. Really quick. See, if there was water and then you went into it like that. It just I mean, maybe if you were just making your puddle colors, but I would not recommend doing like an actual artwork that way. It just looks very grainy and scratchy and then, like you couldn't see right there. That left a harsh line, so we'll just let that dry up and then I'll blend it out later. 7. Project 1 Landscape pt3 : - you could do some circular motions here. For some, Bush is to break up shapes a little bit. - I'm just going in with the details here. I'm giving my mountains a little bit more structure here, a little more shape. 8. Project 2 Plant : projects ever to right here. We're just gonna do a very easy house plant. Let's see. So start off. Was the pot given? I'm just gonna make a brown. Maybe we'll put in a little bit of yellow for some golden highlights. We just want to keep everything nice and easy for right now, okay? And no water yet. I'm gonna draw everything first, so let's see them will go in with the green. So we'll come up, do some vines. I'm just gonna make some leaf shapes and then fill the man, - okay ? And now you have all of your colors down. You're ready for your water. - I switched my brush because this point is a little bit better than the other when I was using for these tiny leaves. So if you're doing something really, really small, get yourself a brush with a good point on the tip. Some of them are definitely a little bit more rounded than others. Okay, so this is just the first layer. But by now you get the idea so we can go ahead. My done with this because let it dry, and then you can come back with a deeper green we're gonna put, like the veins and some details on the plant. But just like the regular watercolors, you're gonna let them dry in between. Okay? Now for this, for some final touches on this plant here, they did a sharp in this point, I'm just gonna get would more detail, and then you can go ahead if you want it. Just a couple veins here and there. And if you have a deeper brown come in here for the soil can see the soil in the pot. 9. Project 3 Lemon : and then over here I have a small space. So I think I'm just going to another demonstration just to show some more blending. I'm just gonna dio fruit here, so we're gonna do a lemon, the six ship, and we'll make a little bit fatter. There's always like a little peace hands. Let's see here. This is my lemon yellow, deeper golden. And then maybe you would like a tiny bit of green on the ends. It's against this for practicing with blending the colors that when you could really see how well everything blend together cause I used about four different colors there and about three different yellows here in the side, a tiny bit of green looks really good. And then, of course, you can let it dry and then put a little bit more D To what? - And for some of the shadow areas around the lemon, I used some of the orange and I went ahead and ice watch some of the colors so you can still see them there for a reference and everything that was used and blended for each one there. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how to use the watercolor pencils for beginners. Be sure to check out my other classes. I have other projects, including the watercolor pencils. Have some roses and a few other projects to that are easy for beginners, so you can feel free to hand on over and check up those projects, and I also have regular watercolor and acrylic painting as well.