Watercolour Pencils as a Supplementary tool in a Nature Sketching Kit

My journey in discovering and using the Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour Pencils

So first things first, this is not a review in the sense of comparing Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils with other brands of watercolour pencils. I haven’t really tried any other artist quality watercolour pencils.

This is my experience of using watercolour pencils, why I got them, what I was looking for and what I’ve found them to be great for. If you're looking to get some watercolour pencils for your field sketching kit but are unsure, perhaps this post will help sway you one way or the other.

If you know you want to get watercolour pencils and are mostly trying to decide whether the Albrecht Dürers are good, they are vibrant, lightfast, easy to use and re-wet. That said, I would recommend looking for other resources on the web or YouTube for a proper review.

Discovering Watercolour Pencils

Gyrocarpus americanus or 'whirly whirly' tree sketches on Christmas Island done in watercolour pencils.

My journey with watercolour pencils is quite new, but I have used coloured pencils for quite a while and when I was getting back into my supplies I remembered the joy of my Lyra Polycolor pencils particularly in colouring pages.

The difficulty with coloured pencils though is the amount of technique and time required to build up the colours evenly. For me, while it was (and is) a lovely tool for mindfulness colouring, it is not something I found suits the way I like to sketch, draw and paint.

I had only really tried watercolour pencils of the children’s grade variety previously, and I remember being extremely disappointed and frustrated with them. It was the same for watercolour. How finicky it was just did not suit my preferences when I was younger either. I loved oil pastels and acrylic paints because of how wonderfully vibrant they were. It is only relatively recently that I’ve come to love watercolour and watercolour pencils.

What got me to try them?

I was introduced to them about a year ago (maybe longer now actually) after watching Mind of Watercolor’s channel on YouTube and the ways in which he uses watercolour pencils, and then reading Cathy Johnson’s excellent book “Painting Nature in Watercolor”.

Cathy Johnson’s book is great at showing how you can really get these to work for you in the field for quick and not-so-quick sketches, so I started looking into them as a way to add to my little field kit.

What was my key requirement?

Portability.

All my supplies at the moment are considered and bought with portability in mind.

This was one of my main objectives when I started consistently painting and drawing and making things again when I was home in March 2020 – I wanted to try to find a way that I could take these with me on my travels and in my backpack. I definitely did not want to have to carry a lot of different pencils with me.

What was I hoping to get from the pencils, and why did I settle on these ones?

I was mainly hoping to add a quick and easy way to sketch outdoors to my kit, and to hopefully find something that would add vibrance and brightness to my watercolours quickly.

These weren’t my first choice. Having loved Lyra’s Rembrandt Polycolor pencils, I was hoping to try Lyra’s watercolour pencil offering – the weight of those pencils sits beautifully in my hands, and I’m not usually a big fan of the hexagonal design of the Faber-Castell pencils.

Unfortunately, my local Officeworks did not carry individual colours in the Lyra Watercolour pencils, so in a sense the choice was made for me. I really wanted to be able to choose something I could easily get and start using. I also wanted to be able to select individual colours that would give me the ability to mix and create the colours I needed, starting with a basic split primary set of 6 or so.

I knew Officeworks stocked the Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils individually, so I researched a bit and to my delight, they are highly recommended. Many of them have amazing lightfastness so I decided to give them a go.

The Albrecht Dürers are given a lightfast rating of between 1 and 3 by the brand, with one being the least lightfast and 3 being the most. I've indicated the lightfastness ratings next to the colours below with (LF: 1/3) being 1 star and (LF: 3/3) being 3 stars.

The Colours

The colours I started with were:

Light Cadmium Yellow 8200-105 (LF: 3/3) A cool yellow.

Cadmium Yellow 107 (LF:2/3) A very slightly warmer yellow - probably a neutral yellow really.

Helioblue-reddish 8200-151(LF: 3/3) A warm blue.

Helio Turquoise 155 (LF: 3/3) A cool blue.

Permanent Carmine 126 (LF: 2/3) A warm red.

Madder 142 (LF: 2/3) A cool red.

I then added the following:

Earth Green 8200-172 (LF: 2/3) For the lighter grey-greens in the Perth flora.

Juniper Green 165 (LF: 3/3) For the darker but still cool greens in the Perth flora. One of my favourites.

Dark Indigo 8200-157 (LF: 3/3) For some depth

Ivory 103 (LF: 3/3) For some light areas, and it works nicely as a watercolour-pencil version of Buff Titanium.

Finally I added:

Cadmium Orange 111 (LF: 3/3) For more olive green mixes as the two yellows above were a bit too similar.

Dark Sepia (LF: 3/3) For the grey-brown branch tones – this mixed with ivory create lovely light trunks. An all-around workhorse. I use this colour for sketching a lot.

Watercolour pencils albrecht durer - some colour wheels

These are some greens I can mix with the above colours.

Using These Watercolour Pencils

The main ways I use these watercolour pencils are:

1. Sketching Quickly outdoors

I sometimes like doing entire sketches in watercolour pencil, and then adding water to all or some parts of them.

I do also like leaving them as they are for a more sketchy look.

They’ve been great for quick sketches where I just want to capture the branches of a tree or when I'm on a boat and want to capture the shape of the rocks/land from the ocean.

2. Sketching outlines

I like sketching the outlines in watercolour pencils close to the watercolour colours I’ll be using and they allow for a nice subtle sketch that mixes in beautifully with the final paints.

This allows me to get right into the sketch/painting without needing the whole sketch in graphite pencil then erase it all before painting stage. It also feels less permanent than just going in with a pen for example but still provides some definition where I want it.

3. Adding some detail over the top of paintings

They’ve been great in adding some bark details, or subtle colour adjustments over the top of watercolour.

So have they served their function? What do I think now?

Overall, I think a small set of watercolour pencils can be a great addition to any field kit or travel kit. For me they’ve been lovely – sometimes I only use the pencils when I’m outside because it allows for a very quick sketch – even quicker than my watercolour box, waterbrush and sock combo!

Are they more vibrant than watercolours?

Yes and No.

It really depends on what watercolours you’re using and about getting familiar with them.

I can get really vibrant colours with some of my Schmincke and Mission Gold watercolours - especially the Mission Gold ones.

The one thing I have had to accept though is that watercolour requires patience, and the time to learn to use them well. The more I've used watercolours, the more I realise that my frustration with the lack of vibrancy was more me than the medium.

Building up colour can be done in a few different ways, but rarely are watercolours going to be gouache-like or alcohol marker-like for example, and I’m ok with that now. I’ve learned to love watercolour for the wonderful things it can do, and I have a set of gouache for when I want brighter, more opaque colours.

Would I like more colours?

Perhaps, but as I don't want to carry too much with me and my aim is to be content and creative with the supplies I have, they serve the function I need them to serve. I am loving my current set of materials, and I am absolutely loving the smaller amount of choice to combat some of my over-thinking, decision paralysis.

I have noted in the colour wheels above though that I am missing a warmer blue and a cooler red to create some vibrant purples so I'll look for those once I've used up my current warm blue/cool red.

Should you try them?

If you’re considering adding watercolour pencils to your arsenal, I think you can't really go wrong with trying a few.

That said, I don’t think you need to go out and get a full set if you're unsure. A small split primary set and maybe a couple of extras should be more than enough to start. Think of the subjects you already work with, and select colours that might complement those as a starting point.

If you don’t have space, budget or other constraints, by all means go all in.

If you use watercolour pencils, I'd love to hear how you like to use them. Have they replaced watercolours for you?

UPDATE AUGUST 2022

I added a few extra coloured pencils a while ago before I started the road trip. I have used them to sketch quite a bit and I love the new colours every bit as much as the ones I already had. The colours I added were earthier reds and greens:

Chromium Green Opaque (LF 3/3)

Olive Green Yellowish (LF 2/3)

Permanent Green Olive (LF 3/3)

Indian red (LF 2/3)

Pompeiian Red (LF 2/3)

Van Dyck Brown (LF 2/3)

These are dry and wet swatches of all the Albrecht Dürer pencils I currently have and use.

Swatches of just the new-to-me colours on 100% cotton recycled paper.