Best Watercolor Pencils – The Five Review
Looking for the Best Watercolor Pencils? Are you a watercolor enthusiast seeking a versatile and convenient tool to bring your artistic visions to life?
Consider watercolor pencils, the ultimate companions for unleashing your creativity on paper. These remarkable tools combine the ease of colored pencils with the ethereal beauty of watercolors, allowing you to achieve stunning effects with ease.
Whether you’re a beginner exploring the world of watercolors or a seasoned artist looking to expand your repertoire, watercolor pencils offer a delightful and accessible way to create captivating works of art.
In this article, we will examine the realm of watercolor pencils, exploring their features and sharing our top picks for the best options on the market. Get ready to embark on a colorful journey that will inspire and invigorate your artistic endeavors!
What are watercolor pencils?
You might be wondering what is the excitement with these water soluble colored pencils. Well, watercolor pencils allow you to create water color art whether dry or wet. Go for professional watercolor pencils and you can use them like regular artist-colored pencils. Or you can work the watercolors with brushes. That’s because these special pencils contain water-soluble ‘leads’ made of soft wax. So you just have to dip them into the water and you can create a beautiful watercolor wash directly on your canvas.
As mentioned, these pencils can also be used dry like a normal pencil. Plus you even have the option of drawing dry and then going over your marks with a wet brush, to create watercolor effects in a different way.
Watercolor Pencils Characteristics That Make Them Superior
Here are some guidelines to know what make some of the professional watercolor pencils more superior than others. These are the qualities of the best watercolor pencils.
- Quality of Pigments: Superior watercolor pencils are characterized by high-quality pigments that deliver vibrant, rich, and lightfast colors. Lightfastness indicates the resistance of a pigment to fading when exposed to light. Many professional-grade pencils boast a rating of lightfastness.
- Blendability: The best watercolor pencils blend effortlessly. When water is applied, the colors should dissolve smoothly, permitting easy mixing with other colors. This enables the creation of gradients, shadows, and a variety of other effects.
- Hardness: The hardness of a pencil impacts how readily the color is transferred when you draw. Harder pencils, while more durable and easier to sharpen to a fine point, may not lay down as much color as softer pencils. On the other hand, softcore water soluble colored pencils, despite providing bold colors, might break more easily. The best watercolor pencil is mostly softcore with rich and vibrant pigments.
- Pencil Quality: The physical build of the pencil itself bears significance. The pencil should be solidly constructed, with the lead centered and securely fastened to the wood casing to prevent it from breaking during sharpening or drawing.
- Range of Colors: A broad palette is beneficial, particularly for intricate pieces. More professional sets offer a wide spectrum of colors, including different shades of each hue.
- Price: Professional-grade pencils will generally be costlier than student-grade ones. However, the improvement in quality is often worth the investment, especially if you’re aiming to create art that endures.
- Environmental and Health Safety: Most professional-grade pencils are non-toxic and produced with environmental consciousness. Nonetheless, it’s always prudent to verify this aspect.
How to Choose the Best Watercolor Pencil Brand
One of the first things you should consider when choosing a watercolor pencil brand is the lead. If you prefer making fine and detailed work, choose thinner leads. Thicker leads are best if you want to cover more areas in a short time.
Consider the shape of the pencil. Most watercolor pencils come in three shapes: hexagonal, round, and triangular. Decide which pencil shape will be most comfortable in your hand.
Another consideration to make when buying watercolor pencils is the number of colors. A set may come in 12 colors at the least and extend to a wider spectrum. Consider how many colors you need.
Will a bigger set be useful for your art style? If you often do a lot of blending, a smaller set may be the better choice. If you’re new to making watercolor pencil art, you’re better off with a smaller set.
Consider how hard you need your pencil to be. Some brands offer softer leads. However, if you tend to break your pencils, go with a more durable brand.
What are the best watercolor pencils? Here are some of the professional watercolor pencils brands you should try.
1. Amazrock Watercolor Pencils
Amazrock is one of the world’s leading brands in art materials. Whether you use these pencils dry or wet, you’re sure to create amazing art.
* Watch this art demonstration using Amazrock Watercolor Pencils
PROFESSIONAL WATERCOLOR PENCILS QUALITY
This pencil set is designed for artists and includes a canvas roll bag that may be used as a travel case for colored pencils.
Amazrock water-color pencils have a sturdy, 3.4-millimeter softcore and bright, color-lead sticks that allow for smooth coverage.
These professional colored pencils are water-soluble and packed with rich and bright pigments. Colors drawn with an Amazrock watercolor pencil will not degrade over time. This ensures that the color will remain brilliant even after being exposed to air, water, and sunshine.
You also get the guarantee of an ergonometric grip, ensuring it’ll always be comfortable to use these pencils over a lengthy period. The hexagonal body also ensures precision for minute art, which works well with the pencils’ accurate color profile.
2. Derwent Watercolor Pencils
Derwent provides some of the top watercolor pencils on the market. These pencils come with natural wood barrels. They also come with soft wax pigments that dissolve well in water.
Derwent Watercolor Pencils are a great choice for artists. Derwent provides up to 72 pencil pigments, so you’ll never be short of colors. Some colors have a fast drying time, so it may change your process a bit.
Depending on how you work, you may need to keep applying water and fresh colors. Are you looking for an alternative to Faber Castell’s hexagon pencils? Derwent is comfortable to hold, easy to sharpen, and can provide neat and finished art.
Derwent Watercolor Pencils feature a 3.4mm lead. You can find them in sets of 12, 24, 36, 48, and 72 colors. If you’re looking for more permanent colors, try the Derwent Inktense Permanent model.
With the classic Derwent Watercolor Pencils, you can reactivate dried pigments by applying water. However, with the Inktense model, the dried layer is permanent. Adding a layer on top of it will not affect the dried layer.
Inktense pencils can provide more vivid colors, looking almost like ink. These pencils can work on fabric as well as they can on paper.
3. Prismacolor Premier Watercolor Pencils
The Prismacolor Premier pencil set is one of the best models for new artists. If you’re a beginner, you’ll notice how easy it is to blend colors with these pencils. Each pencil can give you a creamy, yet rich pigment.
Professional artists can also enjoy the quality of Prismacolor Premier watercolored pencils. Each pencil in this set has rich pigment with high saturations on paper. These watercolor pencils have excellent solubility.
When you apply water, you will notice shimmering effects. The colors will match the Prismacolor Premier palette. If you often work with mixed media, the Prismacolor Premier is great to add to your arsenal.
4. Caran D’ache MUSEUM Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils
This set of Caran d Ache Watercolor Pencils – Museum Aquarelle is one of the more expensive models on this list. It comes with a hexagonal barrel that is easy and comfortable to hold. The pigments are soluble in water and easy to control.
Their extra-fine quality makes them ideal for both watercolor painting and artistic drawing. They were designed in close collaboration with renowned watercolorists in Caran D’Ache’s Geneva workshop. They have soft, smooth lead cores with a matte surface to ensure a consistent flow of color when they come into contact with paper. When lead is dissolved in water, it forms pure watercolor paint due to its high pigment concentration and transparency.
This Museum Aquarelle set features 3.8mm leads. These are perfect for fine-detail artwork when you sharpen the pencils to a fine point. If you’re an experienced artist ready for a better art supply, try the Caran D’ache Museum Aquarelle set.
5. Staedtler Ergosoft Aquarell
The German brand Staedler is one of the oldest art brands in the world. Founded in 1835, Staedler claims that coloring pencils were their invention. Despite this outlandish claim, Staedler remains one of the most popular watercolour pencil brands.
These pencils are easy to hold and handle thanks to their hexagonal shape. Their 3mm leads have rich pigments and are resistant to breakage. These water-soluble colored pencils are easy to blend, allowing you to create beautiful washes.
Staedler offers a wide range of colors with vivid hues. These colors retain their pigment when mixed with water. You can find sets of 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 colors, making them perfect for beginners and pros.
Get the Best Water Color Pencils Now
Have you concluded which watercolor pencils are the best for you? Here are our selected five recommended brands for watercolor pencils best for hobbyists and professionals that are on the market. Making art is something that anyone can enjoy and benefit from. Faber Castell and Derwent are the most popular brands on the market among others. Amazrock is also preferred for its artist quality at an affordable price.
Whether You Are An Artist Or Simply Enjoy Art, You’ll Want Quality Watercolor Pencils Best for Everyday | The Best Watercolor Pencils To Use.
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