Watercolour pencils (1 Viewer)

I bought some watercolour pencils for use in the field as I find actual watercolours too fiddly to use outdoors. I am hoping to get out and try them at the weekend.

Does anyone else use these and, if so, what do you think of them?

I've used them in the past, they're pretty good and you can get some interesting results but don't make the mistake of thinking that they are watercolours. They are water soluble pencils which means that you can add water to the marks you've already made, to soften edges, help with blends etc. Or, with a brush, you can take pigment direct from the pencil and apply it or you can dampen the end of the pencil and apply pigment that way. I always found the pigments to be somewhere between watercolour and gouache, not truly transparent but not truly opaque either, something akin to a chalky watercolour. Hope this helps, anyway have fun with them and let us see the results.

Mike

I don't like them myself- I find them too wishy washy and prefer watercolour crayons. You can use them as Mike described and they are much more vibrant and transparent. Carandache noecolour 11 watersoluble are the ones I have. When I actually paint in the field which at present is not as oftren as i would like I have a little plastic Cotman set, a couple of small brushes and some water in one of those little shampoo bottles we nick from hotels. All this fits in a large pocket along with a little watercolour pad.
Must get out more!

I use them in conjunction with other things, like Mike says, they're not watercolours and you can only soften the lines you make with them, they're great for sketching though, although very easy to overwork. I also like using them on wet paper, or for adding detail over acrylic.