Wet Colored Pencils--Applications 3

  Each drawing in this group is a composition totally rendered with liquified color. In some cases layers were individually painted, dried and overlapped with new ones.

  Actually, this takes a lot more execution time. Rendering soluble colors in conjunction with regular non-soluble pencils is more time effective. However, when the desired quality is to achieve watercolor like "wet" results, then one should not consider time to be of importance.

Which Is Which?

  If you have been particularly observant in viewing the Wet Colored Pencil pages, you would have noticed that the color black was hardly used. Most darkening was achieved with lower intensity hues or complements.

  One thing you learn very quickly is that the soluble black pencil is very strong and dominates lighter mixtures very quickly. One of the compositional practices we did was to create a comparative rendering of a drawing solely with black soluble pencil and the same of similar composition rendered in India ink. A student comparison is above. Can you distinguish which one is pencil and which is ink?

  In rendering, both mediums can be made into very lightly controlled washes, and both can express very dark contrasts as evident in these two examples. When ink is applied first and then thinned and graded with a wet brush, its "runniness" is smoothed out. This was the method applied here. So, which is which?

  Well, O.K. I'll tell you. The ink drawing in on the right, and the pencil rendering is on the left. Did you choose (or guess) correctly?

  Final Thoughts.......I have personally enjoyed the experience of using soluble colored pencils very much. Students learned new methods in both pencil types and seemed to prefer combining them together rather than using the soluble ones alone. There is not much difference in cost between the two types of colored pencils, unless you select professional quality ones.

  An honest observation that should be noted is that there is a great difference in watercolor paintings and watercolor effects with soluble colored pencils. The former offers transparancies, flows and effects the later cannot generate--but do have their own qualities.

  I hope you will choose to experiment with the soluble pencils for the added coloring power that can be achieved especially with layering and combination techniques. At any rate, enjoy them! They are relatively inexpensive, require little care and are easily transportable.