Can you use watercolour over pencil?
As a professional artist using and teaching watercolour art lessons online for over 10+ years, I can confidently answer that question: YES! But there’s a few things you’ll want to know first:
We use pencil and watercolour together all the time in my artwork classes. But I always offer students this option before we start painting: “decide now whether you want pencil lines showing, BEFORE you start painting”.
Once you paint over a graphite pencil, the pencil can no longer be rubbed out (as our Kingscliff art class students have discovered). You see, when we add paint (and ultimately water) to an area of our painting, the paper fibres beneath swell, allowing the paint to sink in. Any normal graphite or lead pencil will also sink in. Then, the paper will shrink back as it dries and the graphite will be trapped there forever more. Now, some artists love the look of their pencil lines showing. It shows part of your working process and can be a very interesting part of the finished artwork. But often we don’t want our pencil lines to show. When I do illustration work for example, I don’t like pencil lines showing. Or when I’m teaching my online painting classes, for the sake of time sometimes we will trace/transfer an image and leaving that pencil outline can really look bad.
But overall, I love the look of sketchy pencil lines showing through watercolour. Perhaps it’s my background in architecture that started that obsession.
Line and wash. Image source: Pinterest (original source not linked)
To avoid that, we simply use a kneadable eraser to “dab” the pencil lines, effectively lightening them without removing them all together.
Kneadable eraser. Image source: Lincraft
Another alternative is to use a watercolour pencil in a neutral colour. We don’t tend to use these in my online painting classes or my Kingscliff painting classes because I want to keep our material list small and sometimes students need their pencil lines to stay visible while they complete a painting. Once you paint over watercolour pencil lines, they disappear into the wet area, so keep that in mind.
Watercolour pencils. Image source artsupplies.co.uk
If you’re curious about my online painting classes that I mentioned, I call them the Artory Academy. It’s an online membership which contains 100+ different watercolour and drawing exercises, all tested out on real in-person classes first so you can have the most stress-free watercolour painting experience. I’ve taught watercolour to kids and adults in artwork classes for over 10+ years now and have been an invited guest teacher at schools and workshops around Australia. All of that hands-on-experience seeing where students struggle or go wrong has helped me to be the best watercolour teacher I can be. And now I pride myself on the Artory Academy I have created.
I have made it super affordable with no lock-in memberships because I don’t want anyone to miss out. I want everyone to experience the joy and relaxation of watercolour painting like I have. Feel free to email me any questions you may have about it.
Anne x
ARTORY ACADEMY
Your Australian online art school focused on professional drawing and watercolour techniques.