Day 200 (Wed July 19) caran d’ache pencils!!

Can it already be day 200??? (Have I counted correctly? Several times I’ve found and corrected mistakes in my count. We’ll know around December 31st, I guess!)

Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencils. These JUST arrived today and I am loving them already. Here’s what the packaging says …”not a watercolor pencil, it is a water-soluble in pencil form….100% water soluble, immediately and totally. Optimal transparency with no veiled effect. range of 76 brilliant and vibrant colors. Exceptional colour lightfastness applied wet or dry…high pigment density.”

How did I not know about these????

They are so smooth and creamy. Amazing. And absolutely brilliant when water is applied. I received 2 pencils in my “artsnacks” package last month, tried them and fell in love. I agonized over which set to order (they aren’t cheap) and settled on Landscape (thrilled with the set so far) I imagine Marine is in my future… one day… maybe… 🙂 I don’t even know what to say about these. I hope I can find exciting ways to use them.

Using watercolor paper, here’s my sketch… it could look less grainy with flat paper…

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After applying just a layer of water over the whole thing:

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Not thrilled that I’d lost a bit of lighter colored area I had left on the top of the apple, I tried pulling some color up by erasing… perfect! It removed just the right amount. I’ve read that I can also rewet it and lift color just like watercolor paint.

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How cool is that???

You could even create a little travel paint set for a quick day out by scribbling colors on a flat page (they write on a plastic folder I have sitting here, so strips of an inexpensive plastic report cover set inside a small tin or even an envelope) then using a few drops of water to activate them and use like regular watercolor.

This is too fun.

Day 195 (Fri july 14) more watercolor crayons

Using these Caran d’Ache watercolor crayons

for the second time… they are so fun!! Obviously I haven’t quite figured them out yet, but I will keep playing with them.

First I drew an image… they spritzed water over the surface. See how the colors just flowed immediately??

 

 

Then I used a brush to move it around a bit, and after it dried I used more crayon (oh my goodness you can crayon white right on top of the colors!!!!) and a little more wet paintbrush and a little more crayon scribbling… well I couldn’t really tell when I was finished and felt like that might go on for a while, so I just stopped. I can imagine some gorgeous simple backgrounds with these things. And I’ve read that both these and their watercolor pencils have great lightfast ratings.

Day 193 (Wed July 12) watercolor crayon scribble

I forgot to post this yesterday!! I played around with my new watercolor crayons and came up with this crazy owl… I need to practice with these, but they are SO ridiculously fun to use!! I like the way you can either leave some crayon lines, or wash them away. I HIGHLY recommend this brand. Smooth, creamy, vibrant, supposedly very lightfast.
caran d’ache watercolor crayons

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