What Are Watercolor Pencils and How Do They Work?
A Versatile Tool That Sits Between Drawing and Painting
Introduction
Watercolor pencils are one of those materials that generate genuine confusion the first time you encounter them. They look like colored pencils. They are held and used like colored pencils. But when you introduce water, something different happens: the pigment dissolves, spreads, and begins to behave like watercolor paint.
This combination of drawing precision and painting fluidity is what makes watercolor pencils a natural extension for anyone who already works with watercolor. They do not replace watercolor paint or colored pencils. They occupy a specific position between the two, offering capabilities that neither of the others provides on its own.
This guide covers what watercolor pencils are, how they differ from regular colored pencils and from tube or pan watercolor, the three practical ways to use them, and where they fit within a mixed media practice built on watercolor as the foundation.
1. What Watercolor Pencils Are
A watercolor pencil is a pencil with a pigment core that is soluble in water. The core is formulated with water-soluble binders rather than the wax or oil binders used in conventional colored pencils. This single difference in formulation is what changes everything about how the pencil behaves when water is introduced.
Used dry, on dry paper, a watercolor pencil behaves in ways that are very similar to a colored pencil. It makes a mark, the mark has the texture and precision of a pencil line, and the color sits on the paper surface. The mark is visible and workable.
When water touches that mark, the water-soluble binder releases the pigment, which then flows with the water. The mark dissolves. Depending on how much water is used and how it is applied, the result can range from a slightly softened pencil mark to a smooth, fully fluid wash that is indistinguishable from watercolor applied from a tube.
2. How They Differ from Regular Colored Pencils
The difference between a watercolor pencil and a regular colored pencil is not visible until water is involved. Both make marks on paper. Both can be layered, blended with pressure, and used for detail work. But the core composition determines what happens next.
A regular colored pencil has a core bonded with wax or oil. Water does not dissolve this binder. When you brush water over a wax or oil-based colored pencil mark, the water beads or slides over it rather than releasing the pigment. This is why colored pencil can be used to create a wax resist effect in watercolor, specifically because it repels rather than accepts water.
A watercolor pencil dissolves when water is applied. The pigment is released and moves with the water exactly as tube or pan watercolor does. This means watercolor pencil cannot create a resist effect, but it can be activated and blended with water in ways that regular colored pencil cannot.
The practical implication for mixed media work is significant. If you apply a regular colored pencil mark before watercolor, you create resistance. If you apply a watercolor pencil mark before watercolor, you create additional pigment that will activate and integrate with the wash.
If you apply either type of pencil after watercolor has dried, the watercolor pencil can be activated with minimal water to add color that integrates softly, while the regular colored pencil adds a mark that remains distinctly itself.
3. How They Differ from Tube and Pan Watercolor
The comparison between watercolor pencils and conventional watercolor paints is about positioning and control rather than quality of result.
Tube and pan watercolor is mixed with water before application and applied with a brush. The pigment is already in suspension when it reaches the paper. This makes it highly efficient for covering large areas, creating smooth washes, and working with wet-on-wet techniques where fluid paint needs to move freely across a damp surface.
A watercolor pencil positions dry pigment on the paper before any water is introduced. This means you can place color with the precision of a pencil point, in exactly the location you want it, before deciding how to activate it.
You can draw the precise shape of a shadow, the exact edge of a petal, or the specific area of a leaf where you want more intensity, and then activate that pigment with a small amount of water rather than applying wet paint and trying to control where it goes.
For large background washes and broad atmospheric areas, conventional watercolor in tube or pan format is more practical. For specific, small areas where pigment placement matters, watercolor pencil gives a type of control that a loaded brush cannot replicate.
The third practical difference is portability and setup. Watercolor pencils require no palette, no mixing, and no water container when used dry. They can be used in any context where a pencil can be used, with the option of activating the marks later with water.
For more on how conventional watercolor paints work and what to look for when choosing them, this Watercolor Techniques for Beginners guide covers the foundational techniques and this Best Watercolor Paints for Beginners article covers how to choose between student and artist grade options.
4. Three Ways to Use Watercolor Pencils
4.1 Dry Application
The simplest use is treating watercolor pencils exactly like regular colored pencils, applying them dry to dry paper and not introducing water at all. The marks remain as pencil marks, with the texture of the paper visible through the pigment and the precision of a pencil point.
This approach is useful for adding fine linear details, creating hatching or cross-hatching textures, and building up areas of color that will eventually be activated with water later in the process.
It is also useful in situations where you want the mark to remain as a mark rather than dissolving into a wash, for example, when adding linear definition to a finished painting that needs detail but not additional color coverage.
4.2 Drawing Dry Then Activating with Water
This is the most versatile use. Draw with the pencil on dry paper, then pass a damp or wet brush over the marks. The pigment dissolves and flows with the water, creating a wash effect in the areas where the pencil was applied.
The range of results depends on how much water you use. A barely damp brush over a pencil mark produces a slightly softened, blurred version of the original mark, with the general shape preserved but the edges dissolved.
A fully wet brush produces a fluid wash that spreads beyond the original mark and can be guided with the brush. A very wet brush with concentrated pencil marks can produce a small wash that is difficult to distinguish from conventionally applied watercolor.
This approach gives precise control over where pigment is placed before the water is introduced. For shadows on curved surfaces, color intensification in specific small areas, or adding color to areas that are difficult to reach cleanly with a loaded brush, drawing dry and activating with water is significantly more controllable than applying diluted paint directly.
4.3 Drawing on Wet or Damp Paper
When the pencil tip is applied directly to paper that is already wet or damp, either pre-wetted with clean water or carrying a layer of freshly applied watercolor, the pigment dissolves immediately on contact. The mark integrates with the wet surface, producing a softer, more diffused result than drawing on dry paper and activating afterward.
This approach is useful for adding color into a wet wash that is still active, intensifying specific areas of a wet-on-wet passage, or introducing a second color into a wash without picking up the brush again.
The amount of integration depends on how wet the surface is: very wet paper produces maximum diffusion, slightly damp paper produces moderate integration with some mark quality still visible.
5. Where Watercolor Pencils Fit in a Mixed Media Practice
For anyone whose practice is built around watercolor as the primary medium, watercolor pencils address three specific situations that conventional watercolor and regular colored pencils handle less efficiently.
The first situation is adding precise details after the watercolor is dry. Once a watercolor painting is complete, any area that needs more definition, a finer line, a more specific color placement, or a softer edge than a pencil can produce on its own benefits from watercolor pencil applied and partially activated with minimal water.
The activation integrates the mark into the surface rather than leaving it sitting on top as a visible pencil line, which is the result regular colored pencil produces in the same situation.
The second situation is intensifying a specific color area without the risk of reactivating the watercolor layers beneath with excessive moisture. A regular brush loaded with paint brings a significant amount of water to the surface, which can reactivate dried watercolor and cause blooms or unwanted blending.
A watercolor pencil applied dry and activated with a barely damp brush adds pigment and color intensity with minimal water, significantly reducing the reactivation risk.
The third situation is the transition zone between watercolor and colored pencil in the same composition. When an area needs something between the fluidity of watercolor and the distinctly dry quality of colored pencil, a watercolor pencil mark activated with a small amount of water sits exactly in that middle ground. It integrates with the watercolor surface while retaining some of the precision and texture of a drawn mark.
For more on how watercolor and colored pencils work together in a mixed media approach, this Using Watercolors with Colored Pencils article covers the combination in practical terms.
6. Practical Starting Point
If you are adding watercolor pencils to an existing watercolor practice, a set of twelve colors is a practical starting point. Twelve colors cover the primary and secondary color range with enough variation for most mixing and detail needs, without the complexity of managing a large set.
When evaluating a set before buying, two practical tests are useful. The first is solubility: wet the tip of one pencil and observe how easily the pigment dissolves and how fluidly it flows. A pencil with poor solubility will require excessive water to activate and will produce a grainy or uneven wash.
The second is dry mark quality: draw a line on watercolor paper and observe the mark. The pigment should be clearly visible, with consistent coverage and no excessive crumbling or grit from the core.
Compatibility with 300 gsm watercolor paper is worth confirming, since this is the surface the pencils will be used on most frequently. Paper below this weight may not handle the moisture from activation without warping, and the surface texture of lighter paper is different enough to affect how the pencil mark looks and how the pigment activates.
Conclusion
Watercolor pencils do not replace anything in a watercolor practice. They add a specific capability: the ability to position water-soluble pigment with the precision of a pencil before deciding how much, if any, water to introduce. For broad washes and atmospheric areas, conventional watercolor remains more efficient.
For detail work, color intensification in specific areas, and the zone between drawing and painting, watercolor pencils offer a kind of control that neither tube paint nor regular colored pencils can provide.
For the broader context of how watercolor pencils fit within a mixed media practice built on watercolor as foundation, the next guide in this series covers the full approach to combining watercolor with other materials, the sequence that makes these combinations work, and the specific role each material plays.
Happy painting.
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