My Flickr Neocolor Photoset

Last month, I went to Wet Paint and got some Neocolor II crayons. A man at the store told me that I would definitely also want a water brush. He was so right. I immediately fell in love with the crayons + waterbrush.

Since then, I have become obsessed with these crayons. I've had some difficulty finding information about the full range of techniques with these crayons, so I shall compile a list here, starting with the two main methods - working dry to wet, and then wet to wet.

What are Neocolor II?

Neocolor II are water-soluable wax crayons. They are lightfast, full pigmented, & creamy. They melt a little with heat. The crayons can break with some pressure, but are hard enough to accept sharpening. They come in 126 colors, including all the main artist colors as well as metallics. Each individual crayon sells for about $1.50-$2.00. There are also several sets of colors.

Caran d'ache produces Neocolor I and Neocolor II. Neocolor II are the water-soluable wax crayons. Neocolor I are oil pastels and don't mix with water (though they do mix with Neocolor II.)

Getting set up with Neocolors

Colors + brush + water + paper + tools

Sketchbook
A Kundst & Papier Binderboard sketchbook. My favorite. The sketchbook that I got has slightly toothy paper, of normal weight. The covers are hard, providing a drawing surface, but the binding is flexible, which means it opens flat. Awesome. I dislike ring bindings (uncomfortable) and wobbly little books (moleskine almost fits in this category, but I like the moleskin paper a lot.)

However, to blend the Neocolors in light washes was requiring a bit too much water. This, combined with some of the force necessary to stir up the colors into the water, was giving me less time to mix the colors: the paper would get ruined too quickly - right while I was itching to add colors. My impatience was making me crazy. Part of this is just me learning a new medium....but for me, this is all about creating a system for practice drawing colors + shapes when I am on the move.

Brush
Niji waterbrush. Super awesomeness. No jar necessary, squeeze the brush and you can pour out water all over your paper. This means you can cover a lot more the page. Here are some tips on using waterbrushes. Apparently, they clog and are hard to clean, but the synthetic brush tip lasts for a long time.

Oh, by the way, you can also fill waterbrushes with ink. I tried this and then tried to get the ink out (non-permanent ink) - it was kind of a pain to clean. The brush part was great, but I hated the ink I was using. I will probably try this again with a permanent super black ink, once I have decided to completely turn over a waterbrush to ink, forever. My friend showed me the amazing Pentel Pocket Brush pen, which basically does the same thing. (The Pentel brush pens have really weird bleedy ink.) I found a discussion about differences in brush pens here.

Container & Tools
I found this ArtBin Pencil Utility Box which holds my 48 Neocolors. The trays are long enough for wrapped brushes, sharpener, some pencils. Neocolors do weigh a fair amount, especially when you have a bunch of them. They can't just be thrown in a bag because they will break and get colors all over the place. If they touch each other, then they can get dirty.

Inspiration
In researching sketchbooks, I found urbansketchers.com. Also the book An Illustrated Life contains a lot of images of other people's sketchbooks - which might help you if you have weird issues with sketchbooks, as I obviously do.

Colors
I usually buy my colors individually, since the sets do not always have
the range of colors that I need. The first time I got Neocolors, I
spent $40 and got about 24 colors.

I wound up going back to get more colors. This was partly because I am in love with the Neocolors, and wanted more. But also, I found that getting the usual watercolor colors were not sufficient for working on thinner sketchbook paper with a waterbrush. Too much mixing while wet pills up the paper, which can cause it to tear, or will make colors sink in...creating hideous dark spots.

One solution, I needed some mixed colors. I found myself mixing in a lot of white. Part of the reason for this was that I wanted to add the lights in afterwards, and not leave them out of the painting (which you usually do for watercolor.) Mainly this is because I am working on trying to learn to draw people (as apposed to plants) and so I am still learning where the highlights are. But also, there's something really appealing about mixing gradients between Neocolors. Having lighter colors to mix to should help give a more realistic color range, and also provide a bit more color (white is actually a rare color, like black.) Though, too much white does give a chalky cast to paintings.

Same goes for mixing greens, oranges and purple/blacks. Mixing paint on the page takes its toll on the paper. The proper way to do this, without ruining the paper, is to wait for the page to dry. Waiting + sketchbooks seem to be concepts at odds with one another. So having some mixed colors can reduce some of the waiting, and keep the thinner sketchbook paper a little more intact.

Color chart:
Caran d'ache's color chart

Obtaining Neocolors
Art stores: Art stores sell Neocolors individually and in sets.

Wet paint: Wet Paint is my favorite art store in the whole wide world. If you live in the Twin Cities, you probably already know this. They have Neocolors and waterbrushes.

Ordering Neocolors online
It actually took me a really long time to choose colors online. I don't recommend it unless you can't get to an awesome art store.
Jerry's Art-o-rama had the easiest website to use for choosing colors. They seemed to have all of the less common colors (from the 126 set) and the images were of color samples.

Some color essentials (for me)
Yellows
warm: pale yellow, golden yellow 
mid: yellow 
cool: naples yellow, lemon yellow

Reds
warm: cadmium red,  light cadmium red 
cool: alizarin, ruby red, carmine

Blues
warm: blue indigo, middle cobalt blue, sky blue, dark ultramarine
cool: pthalocyanine blue, cobalt blue

Earth Tones
Golden Ochre, Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Sepia

White
I think white is an important color to have, since it can be used as a base and filler for the Neocolors, making them behave more like gouache.

Black
Most student painters are generally discouraged from using black for painting. Instead you are encouraged to mix black from the primary colors. Neocolors work perfectly for mixing black. But you can still use black for form & contrast studies, as if it were charcoal or a lithographic crayon.

Techniques

Draw on paper with dry Neocolor (then wet later)

Approach
Using normal dry paper, draw with the Neocolors. The wrappers of the Neocolors unpeel. You can sharpen the crayons with normal sharpeners (though you might want to create a storage system for the sharpenings, because they are perfectly good pigment.)
Comments

1. Fixing grittiness: The wax tends to bunch up against any texture in the paper, making it grainy - and depending on how grainy the paper is, if you go over with water, grains may remain. Ways to fix this: Smoother paper should help the grittiness. Most sketchbooks have a slight tooth, so in sketchbooks, certain colors (esp. the darker ones) will grit up.  Sharpening the Neocolor & paying attention to your strokes should also help keep your drawing from looking messy. Pentalic Paper for Pens Pads is ultrasmooth paper which accepts washes, it has the finish of printer paper but is thicker. I found that the Neocolors do blend absolutely perfectly on a smooth surface. If the grittiness is a total deal-breaker for you, the Faber Castell Albrect Durer Watercolor pencils are highly recommended and are supposed to completely liquify when wet.
2. Layering & mixing dry colors: You can layer the colors, applying color in light layers and then going over with a mixing color will give some new colors. When wetting these colors with a wet brush, how much pigment you have laid down of a certain color will matter. For example, in my experience, colors become more intense when wet. If you have too much crayon on the paper, an opaque paint will form on your brush...which actually can be enjoyable - but it depends what you are trying to do. It is also possible that if you were drawing lightly hoping to create a light wash in a certain place, you might want to start wetting the drawing in the light spots so that darker paint is not on your brush. Paying attention to how much crayon you are putting down will help control how colors mix.
   Also, depending how hard you press with your brush, lower layer colors may resurface and mix with your color. So you can control the layers mixing by controlling the amount of water and amount of pressure you use with your brush.
3. Applying a base layer of color: If grittiness of your paper drives you crazy, and you don't mind dealing with lots of color lifting as you paint, you can apply a base color. If this were watercolor, you could put down the lightest color (in the highlights.) With Neocolor, this lightest color will probably contain white - so actually this is a bit more like dealing with gouache. In theory, you should be able to put down a middle color, and then mix in white for highlights. The Neocolor white is almost fully opaque. This is probably a great exercise for color mixing and practicing gradations. However, white paint does make a chalky look, so if you do have very light sections that you don't want to look chalky, just don't paint over them.
4. Rewetting: it appears that Neocolors will only liquify if a thick layer of paint is available on the paper. If you have already spread the Neocolors into the paper with water, it seems like they get stuck in the fibers of the paper and can't move.

Paint on paper with wet Neocolor

Approach
Neocolor crayons can be used like watercolor. To obtain pigment, you can dab anywhere on the crayon with a wet brush. You can also try drawing some colors onto a piece of clear plastic (like a CD case.) You can draw and blend your colors, then lift up paint with a wet brush. If you take to sharpening your Neocolors, you might also wind up with little piles of crayon, which you could reform into little cakes and paint with those.
Comments

1. It's pretty easy to ruin paper with Neocolor and a waterbrush. Because the Neocolors are such a quick medium, and also because mixing Neocolor that you have drawn onto a page requires some force, it seems that the paper quickly gets too wet & the scrubbing action churns up little piles on the paper. Normal watercolor paper does help this. However, the temptation of Neocolor is that they are great for sketchbooks. Between the Neocolors being a drawing medium + the portable waterbrush, there's very little mess and so Neocolors are a bit more portable than regular watercolor. And who wants an expensive watercolor sketchbook with only 10 pages? (not me!)

   Some solutions I have determined:

1. Putting down a base layer of Neocolor (thick) does seem to form a little bit of a wax-layer on the paper which momentarily withstands a bit more water. Probably, drawing with a sharpened Neocolor crayon might also get more wax into the grains of the paper, which might also provide a bit more protection. I heard that you can use Neocolor I with Neocolor II -- so perhaps getting white Neocolor I and using that as a basecolor might help.
2. When applying water with the brush: I have had OK luck with going over the paper once to wet the pigments, and then back once more to blend. It's really only when there is a palpable layer of Neocolor that you can lightly blend colors on top without touching or overly wetting the paper.
3. Practice control with the waterbrush. I have some practice with watercolor painting, and so I am used to drying off the brush and controlling how wet everything is. Squeezing the waterbrush is pretty challenging though. The amount of air, and hence the amount of pressure you need to get the water into the brush hairs, is constantly changing. Basically, I just have to squeeze pretty hard, and then dry off the brush. For my own practice, I wipe the brush on my own hand while I am learning to gage how wet the brush is.
4. For lighter layers, use less water and a tiny bit more pressure. For thicker layers, it seems that your brush can be moist (not dripping) and you can vary the pressure you apply in order to move colors around. There is definitely some timing involved in how and when the layers are liquified.
5. If you are applying wet Neocolor to dry paper, you can basically proceed normally like with watercolor.
6. To apply lighter colors to (dry) darker colors, you may want slightly thick wet Neocolor. Apply in fine strokes gently, and you can avoid wetting and lifting the (dry) layers. You can also drop in tiny bits of lighter colors while wet, and let dry. You could never do this with watercolor because the thick layers of watercolor get copper sheens & can crack. So far, I do not know if Neocolors will crack. They would likely be slightly more flexible than watercolor, but the surface could be damaged easily I am sure.
7. To draw on existing layers. This is almost impossible when you have a lot of pigment laid down. You probably have to let it dry, then draw. You will probably want to sharpen your Neocolor to get the colors to stick (similar to drawing on thick watercolor with colored pencils), but I haven't yet determined if light or heavy pressure is required.

2. About the brush: The blue niji water brushes do have a great point. The tip is pretty fine, flexible and stays together. When the brush has some paint in it, you can roll the tip into a fine point with your fingers. The water brushes do come in different sizes. It is possible that water brushes come in a variety of qualities, and that some are better than others.

Other techniques

I'm going to be very honest with you. When googling 'Neocolor' art, most of what I saw was extremely colorful 'creative' & 'crafty' art - not a lot of variety within the realm of Neocolor art. This kind of surprises me, because it seems possible to do finer art, photorealistic art, and colored cartoons with the Neocolors. I asked the Neocolor company about this and they said that the Neocolors *are* studio grade, even though they are featured in the toy section of their website.

There is definitely a huge area for 'coloring' and 'playing' with the Neocolors - and so I do think that these crayons are like the super ultra crayola crayons. I think a lot of people grew up with craypas oil pastels and probably the messy nature of how you can use the Neocolors attracts people who like to play with atmosphere and color. The similarity to crayons probably also puts the Neocolors in the category of 'kids art supplies.' In my experience, crayons and coloring books were given to kids as a way to get them to be happy and quiet. Very little instruction, critique or other guidance was given. Honestly, my experience with coloring books was not great. I was not one of the lucky kids who naturally figures out drawing and coloring. So I think this is part of why the art made with Neocolor is in the realm of 'just do whatever feels good.' Since the pigments are so strong, and because the sets of Neocolors do not contain lighter colors, most things created with Neocolors will be very bright (unless you have a lot of experience and can control them.) Since all the art pieces are very bright, there is not a lot of range in what people make with Neocolor.

The other main 'genre' of Neocolor art was in sketchbooks - travel journals, portraits, color studies. This makes sense, because the Neocolors combined with sketchbooks & a waterbrush make for clean, portable and easy to deal with medium for studying things that flee (space, people, nature, animals.)

The reason I am so obsessed with the Neocolors is that for me, they are the coolest medium I have ever used. In my personal experiments with art, I am at the stage where I need to study color, in real life. I have a bit of practice with watercolor, but waiting for watercolors to dry definitely does not keep pace with how I want to experiment and do color sketches. I don't do oilpainting, and I believe that oils also require a lot of drying time. Colored pencils (dry and water-soluable) cannot be physically blended/smudged, they are not very waxy. Acrylics are probably the best other medium that can teach a good amount about color mixing...but in my experience, wetting acrylics with water doesn't produce a comparable liquid to watercolor, so you can't play with transparency as well. (I think you need a gel medium for the acrylics.) Anyways, acrylics dry a little too fast sometimes, and they ruin your brushes.

So I can't think of any other medium that allows for the dry and wet techniques to be combined. This is why I think Neocolors are amazing. I have heard a lot of other artists mention this too.

Preserving artwork made with Neocolor II
I contacted the Neocolor company (Caran d'ache), this is what Stefan Lohrer said,

"You are correct in that an acid free paper is the
best paper option to preserve your work.  Blooming is not a problem with
Neocolor II, however, a piece that you wish to preserve or sell should be
sprayed with a fixative, like Caran d'Ache Protector spray."

And the colors are lightfast, so no worries in the preservation. Just don't leave your art in the sun, it might melt!

Complementary techniques

Since Neocolors are a combination of oil pastels and watercolors, for more information on techniques you can draw from those mediums.

Oil pastels
This site has a lot of information about oil pastels, including artists sharing their toolkits for working with oil pastels.

http://www.squidoo.com/oil-pastel

Watercolor

As far as I can tell, there are the watercolorists who like to makes washes, and those who work in a very detailed and controlled manner. I am trained in the detailed manner. For Neocolor, you will probably want to learn about both techniques - blendy washes and also control over your brush.

I learned a lot from this website.
handprint:  http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/water.html

Also, taking classes in botanical illustration at the Minnesota School of Botanical Art taught me a lot more about water color technique.