I got a gift card in return for doing a friend a favour this winter break and I decided to spend it on caran d’ache neocolor II watersoluble wax crayons. I’ve had a couple colours for a while and not really … grokked them? But with a broader range of colours and values I am starting to see how these can work!
Shoutout to these artists’ videos for helping me understand what these are good at:
I’ve been exploring adding dry media on top of watercolours and gouache paintings for a while now – I don’t usually even get out the pencil crayons except for this purpose – so for me I think the most exciting use case of these is as a medium somewhere between pencil crayons and oil pastels. They’re much easier on my hand than the pencil crayons, and they can lay down a field of texture so easily; and where oil pastels are just pure satisfying pigment, they are too messy for many contexts.
The watersolubility is also a standout element – being able to gently hydrate them, let them absorb into the page, and then being able to layer even more paint on top? That’s a very flexible practice.
I’m excited to push them farther!
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