Watercolour crayons are my latest fun art expressive medium. I love transforming dull crayon scratches into vibrant water colour paintings. Watch as I create a full painting from sketch to finished product in just 16 minutes in a loose scribble style. (full video) Unscripted and in real time.

Transcript

Hi, thanks for joining me today. I going to be playing with watercolour crayons. I’ve recently discovered these, I think they’re amazing and they really fit with some of my gestural, scribbly drawing style that I love to do. My brain loves it, it just goes nuts for that scribbly style, so today I’m going to scribble out a landscape with the water colour crayons and then when we add the water, I want to see how that transforms it.

Follow along with me today. I’ve put the whole, full video in. There is no fast forwarding. I’ve just done it quickly, scratching it out, scribbly. And even doing something really scribbly and scratchy I’m getting the feeling that with the watercolour crayons, I’m getting a really colourful, dramatic feel at the end, but. That’s what I’ve found in other works I’ve done with the crayons. I’ve mainly stuck to flowers but when you add the water, it really transforms it.

I’m just going to see today; I haven’t done this one before. I’m using a lot more heavier blacks as well. I’m doing a bit of a tree line, foresty, water happening as well. I’m really keen to see how this one turns out. I’m just going through different browns, different blacks. You can see the crayons I’m using and they’re coming through like a crayon; pretty rough. Not a lot of colour to it. They’re coming through quite dull, so even though I’m putting the greens and the blues in, the colour is coming through quite dull and quite lifeless almost. So, I’m going to keep drawing, keep scribbling out my landscape and just get a bit of a feel for where I’m putting my darks and lights and watch along with me as I go.

(Music plays while drawing)

I’ve added in some lighter background colours and now moving into some, not going to say detail but scratchings of some of the bushes and trees that I want to come forward in the piece. Again, I’m keeping it really loose. I’m not even sure at this point how light the light bits are going to be and how dark the dark bits are going to be until I really get the water on them.

So just adding in a few features, a few stronger marks with the crayons. I’m curious to see how they look once it’s all done. And again, I’m not being too particular, we’re just getting the idea of a forest rather than trying to make it perfect and I like doing that.

I like leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps, to create the forest with me. I create some of it and the viewer creates some of it and I love that and how art works with people’s own experiences of nature and life and with the artwork and with themselves and their process.

I’m continuing adding some detail and filling in some more colour and not being too particular.

(Music plays while drawing)

So, darkening up the areas I want to darken up. I’m just going to add a few little highlights. There’s a bit a branch there coming out of the water.

I’m going to be ready to get the brush and water out soon which will be exciting.

(Music plays while drawing)

So, after my quick scribbles, I’m ready to get the brush and water out. You can see, I’m just using a quite a fine tipped round brush. It’s quite a small brush because I’m not working with a big area here.

I’m adding lots of water to my brush and gently going over certain areas. Now when I’m going over some of the very dark bits I’m rinsing off my brush because I don’t want to smear my blues too much into my blacks otherwise we end up with a big muddy mess. So, as you can see, I’m just rinsing off, using lots of water and trying not to smudge it around across the whole area which is why I’ve got the smaller brush today.

So, I’m going over. Painting over some of the details and what I love about watercolour crayons is that you can still see some of the details, some of the scribblings and then I can wash them through so they’re not so strong by adding more water.

It’s incredible just how brighter and vibrant it’s starting to look. Those blues and greens are really starting to pop.

I’m loving how it comes to life with the crayons and the water. You can see that I’m rinsing a lot. I’m adding lots of water. Especially with the blacks, really rinsing – trying to keep the colours true and then blending through as I go.

I’m leaving some of my features, some of the trees I’ve added in. I’ll do those towards the end.

Yeah, I’m really loving how this is coming to life!

(Music playing while painting)

I’m really loving this now. We’re getting towards the end. It does really move around like water colours but I still get to have the drawing underneath. And to be able to put together something so vibrant together in such a short space of time, like I said, nothing is sped up here, this is real time. I’m just working quickly and the colours are really popping.

From looking really quite lifeless and a bit nothing, they are really starting to come through. I’m loving the water and the bright blues that are coming out. To be honest, they are brighter than I thought. I was going for a bit more of a darker colour – I thought but they are really starting to pop and I’m loving it. It’s brought such life and with the greens starting to stand out too.

I’m just going to finish off a few features. Fill in some gaps. There is the same problem with watercolours, you can add too much water, you can smudge it around too much so this is all very trial and error, just having a go and so far, I’m really loving it.

(Music playing while painting)

So, I’m rounding this one up now and thanks so much for joining me. All in real time, just scribbling out a really bright, colourful landscape that did not start off looking bright and colourful and that’s what I’m really loving about these watercolour crayons and I’m loving how I can keep marks and I can smudge through colour and it’s just awesome how I can blend it through.

So, a lot of fun today. I’m so glad you could join me. Don’t forget to check out my other videos and I hope you had fun with watercolour crayons. Bye for now.