One of the most versatile craft products you can have in your studio (right behind a good pair of scissors and a glue stick) is a nice set of watercolor pencils. While “regular” colored pencils are fine in a pinch, water-soluable pencils play “two-fer”: you can use them as both a pencil AND as a watercolor paint.
Recently, the nice folks at Derwent (in the UK, no less!) sent me a set of their Inktense Pencils– as they say, can be “used to create a diverse range of art from Japanese Manga to vibrant silk painting; traditional watercolours to stunning botanical illustrations.” I thought, sure!
I cracked open the 12-pencil set in a tin and was greeted by the lovely aroma of fresh pencils. Ah, the memories of school came flooding back! But these are FAR and away better than anything I used at school.
So, you know me by now. The first thing I did was a little swatching. AND I made a video!
Here are a couple of swatches on different surfaces:
You can see that there is some opacity on the darker colors- the yellow on the black cardstock, for example. I really love how you can see through the pencil in the sheet music sample. And I’ve determined that if you want to use Derwent Inktense pencils as a palette for watercolor painting, use glossy cardstock. It won’t absorb any of the pigment, so you get the best watercolor paint! (Good to know, right?)
The website said that you can use Inktense pencils for painting on silk, so I tried that. Now, I don’t have a set-up for this (no screen) so I just did a little watercoloring on the silk. (The end result is above.)
I kinda dug the silk thing, so I decided to try some Derwent Inktense pencils on a fabric piece I’m working on. (You may recognize the hand from my Bic Mark It review.) I created a resist with glue around the outline of the hand, and then colored in some color with my pencils. Then I added some water to blend…
Fabric is stabilized with freezer paper.
Finished project. LOVE the vibrant colors!
So what else can I tell you about Derwent Inktense pencils? Good on a variety of mediums, these are now my preferred watercolor pencils to take with my travel journal. (And the nice tin fits into my ecosystem journal pocket, too!) I love the idea of using them for backgrounds in my journal and on ATC’s, and using with my Zentangling. (Read my review of the Zentangle Basics book, too!)
Also, now I’m itching to try the burnisher & blender set, and maybe the insoluable outliner to try some different techniques!
Disclosure
If you are considering purchasing these great pencils, please use my affiliate links:
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Wow – they really do give a rich color – about as good as watercolor crayons!! I’m impressed!
Those look like fun! 🙂
i use this pencils religiously and just adore them!!