What Are Watercolor Pencils?

That is the short version. The longer version is that watercolor pencils sit in a useful middle ground: more controllable than a loaded paintbrush, more flexible than a standard colored pencil. Whether they are the right tool depends on what you want to make and how you prefer to work.

How Do Watercolor Pencils Work?

The difference is in the core. Regular colored pencils bind their pigment with wax or oil — materials that resist water. Watercolor pencils use a water-soluble binder, typically gum arabic or a similar compound. That binder dissolves when it contacts water, releasing the pigment and letting it flow across the paper.

When you draw dry, the binder holds the pigment on the paper surface as a dry deposit. The marks look like colored pencil marks. When you add water — whether by brushing over the marks, wetting the paper first, or dipping the pencil tip — the binder dissolves and the pigment spreads. The more water you add, the further it spreads and the lighter the color becomes.

That relationship between water volume and color intensity is the core skill to develop. Too much water and the pigment gets diluted to almost nothing. Too little and the marks do not dissolve fully. The right amount creates rich, even washes that look painted.

Once the water evaporates and the pigment dries, it is largely set. You can layer over it, but unlike watercolor paint, you cannot easily lift heavily dried pigment off the paper.

Watercolor Pencils vs Colored Pencils

People ask about this comparison constantly, and the confusion makes sense — the tools look nearly identical in the package. Here is where they actually differ:

The one thing I notice artists miss: watercolor pencils are not inherently better or worse than regular colored pencils. They do different things. If you want precise, wax-layered realism, regular colored pencils (Prismacolor, Polychromos) are still better for that specific result. Watercolor pencils win when you want loose, painted effects mixed with drawn details.

Watercolor Pencils vs Watercolor Paints

Watercolor paint gives you more immediate fluid control and a wider range of wash effects. A loaded brush of professional watercolor can cover large areas quickly and create blooms, granulation, and backruns that pencils cannot easily replicate.

Watercolor pencils give you more control over where the pigment goes before you add water. You draw the marks, you decide the placement, and then you activate them. That predictability is easier to manage when you are learning. You can also switch between dry and wet in the same piece without mixing paint or cleaning a palette.

Many painters use both. Pencils for initial sketching and detail work, paint for large washes and loose areas. They are compatible tools, not competing ones.

Types of Watercolor Pencils

Beginner / Children's Grade

Crayola makes the most recognizable entry-level set. The pigment is less intense and the color range is small, but they behave correctly — dry marks activate with water, colors blend. Fine for practice and for teaching kids. Not worth relying on if you want serious results.

Student Grade

Sets from brands like Staedtler, Derwent Watercolour, or Koh-I-Noor sit in this category. Better pigment than kids' sets, reasonable lightfastness ratings, acceptable range of colors. If you are learning the techniques and not ready to invest in professional materials, student grade is where to start.

Artist Grade

Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer and Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle are the two sets I recommend to anyone serious. Both use high-quality, lightfast pigments. The cores are soft enough to dissolve cleanly with a light wash but firm enough to hold a point for detail work. The color range goes up to 120+ colors.

The difference between student and artist grade is noticeable immediately. More pigment per stroke, richer dissolved washes, better lightfastness (meaning colors do not fade as quickly over time). If you plan to keep the work or sell it, artist grade is worth the cost.

Are They Good for Beginners?

Honestly, yes — and I say that as someone who started with traditional watercolor paint and found it frustrating for the first year. The core difficulty with watercolor paint is that you are managing a wet brush loaded with pigment, trying to control where it goes in real time. The paint flows whether you want it to or not.

With watercolor pencils, you apply dry marks first. You can sketch, erase, rethink, and lay down exactly what you want before any water is involved. Then you add water selectively. That two-step process gives beginners a way to learn wet techniques without the panic of wet paint spreading across an unprepared surface.

They are also more portable and less messy than paint. No palette to clean, no wet paint to spill. That makes them practical for anyone who wants to work outside or in limited space.

The one caveat: if your goal is eventually to paint loose, expressive watercolor with a lot of wet-on-wet and flowing washes, watercolor pencils will not fully prepare you for that. They are easier precisely because they are more controlled. Transition to paint at some point if that loose, flowing style is where you want to go.

What Can You Make with Them?

Landscapes

Probably the most popular subject. Skies benefit from wet-on-wet, mid-ground trees and fields from wet-on-dry, and foreground detail from dry pencil work. The range of techniques maps well to the range of detail in a landscape.

Portraits and Figures

Trickier, but workable. Skin tones require careful layering and color mixing. The pencil application gives you control over gradients and edges that you would struggle to achieve with paint alone.

Botanical Art

A natural fit. The combination of fine dry marks for veins and stamens with soft wet washes for petals and leaves plays to the strengths of watercolor pencils. A lot of botanical illustrators work this way.

Abstract Work

Using wet-on-wet techniques with bold colors and letting the pigment spread unpredictably. The less controlled side of what these pencils can do, but often producing the most interesting results.

Urban Sketching

Watercolor pencils are a staple of the urban sketching community. They travel well, do not require a full palette setup, and let you move quickly — sketch the scene dry, add water selectively to bring in color. Fast and effective for on-location work.