The Craft Coven had a blast on The last Sunday of August during a field trip to Asbury Park Beach. The 16 of us soaked up the sun with our toes in the sand while CEO (Craft Event Organizer) Cassie taught a class on creating a watercolor pencil painting.
Watercolor pencils make for a great traveling craft- they are not as messy as pan or tube watercolors, and require a lot less supplies since water can always be added after you take your drawing home. Together we each drew our own viewpoints with HB pencils, added watercolor pencil in layers, lightly added water then touched up again with more water pencil additions.
The beginner-friendly method taught by Cassie only required three colors to sketch out a scene: a light, a dark, and a medium to blend together in our drawings turned paintings. We were suggested to only focus on three subjects, one near, one far and one mid ground, and their relative position to each other to create a scene. By adding water to separate areas, allowing barriers to dry between colors, there is less frustration attempting to control colors running into each other.
Cassie's lesson was great but here are some of my personal tips for watercolor painting with pencils:
+Don’t do a rendering of the scene before that depicts all the lines and details. Part of the pull of watercolor is letting it be “soft” and surrealistic rather than realistic.
+When you sketch out your scene, go from lightest to darkest colors. If you want to use white for a highlight color, block out those sections with tape or whiteout. You can’t add white on top of a color to create highlights like with acrylic painting. Even if the layer below is dry, the color on top will still blend with what is under it.
+Clean your brush between colors to keep them from mixing. Depending on where they are on the color wheel, the colors can become muddied.
+Even though watercolor pencils use less water than pans, you still want to use a hard, flat surface that keeps the paper in place like a clipboard. The paper can still warp from too much water, and a hard surface is required to use the pencils.
It was wonderful coming together for this craft beach day. We are planning our next Craft Coven field trip to the PA Renaissance Faire. The tentative date is during the last weekend of October with a potential hotel share for anyone wanting to enjoy libations responsibly, and without driving.
Check out the updated Craft Coven Calendar for September events. New this month are open studio hours at Cherry Street Pier. Bring your own WIP or do some collaging with Jamie DeAngelis (@thetealappeal) and meet crafty friends.
Come to our monthly events: Sip N' Draw (9/7, Newbold Exchange) | Poetry Workshop (9/13, Starr Garden Rec Center) | Craft Night (9/20, Upstairs at Absynnia)
Keep on Crafting, Witches!
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