The Artist’s Marketplace

Cretacolor Aqua Brique from Savoir-Faire

Cretacolor’s innovative Aqua Brique is a watercolor block that can be used for a variety of drawing, painting and mixed media techniques:  watercolor painting, sketching, sgraffito, blending, frottage, monoprints and more.  Convert these into liquid watercolor with a few drops of water; drag a wet brush over a dry drawing to create a wash; or produce bold fluid strokes by drawing directly with a wet Aqua Brique.  These are great for large-scale drawings and can be used on a wide range of surfaces:  paper, canvas, wood, plastic, glass and more.

Special pigments guarantee brilliant colors and excellent water solubility, and they have exceptional lightfastness. These are available in sets of 10 or 20 Briques, including a mixing palette and water-soluble Monolith graphite pencil.  Or, if your retailer has an open stock display, you can also choose from 20 colors to create a personal palette of Cretacolor Aqua Briques in a 10 or 20 set tin.  See your retailer for this unique product and visit www.savoirfaire.com.

In the Spotlight:  General Pencil Company
Working with Water-Soluble Colored Pencils

General Pencil Co. is one of the premier pencil manufacturers in the United States.  For over 108 years they have been making superb quality writing, drawing, watercolor and multi-use pencils for generations of artists, draftsmen, craftspersons and more.

One of their most successful and dynamic products is their line of Kimberly© Watercolor Pencils.  These high quality pencils are made from the finest artist pigments.  They are ideal for colored pencil drawings as well as adding a wash look when massaged with a wet brush.  All one has to do is practice with a few lines and then gently scrub across those lines with a moderately water-charged brush to see the quick and easy results: softened watercolor tones like those of the traditional watercolorist.  What could be easier?

Kimberly© Watercolor Pencils are great for fine art on a number of quality surfaces.  They are easy to apply to paper and are great for back-to-school, too.  Rubber stamp artists find them fun and useful for multi-color applications in their stamping art.  Other paper crafting artisans find the rich colors and easy application useful, too.  Scrapbook work can be dynamically changed with color additions, and watercolor pencils make it fast and clean to do.

For graphic artists who work on paper, particularly watercolor paper, there is no faster way to create color interest than with water-soluble watercolor pencils.  By evenly coloring in an area, you can use them like colored pencils.  To soften and draw out colors in ever-lightening shades, watercolor pencils are tops.  When rich tones are needed, simply apply the pencils in heavier layers to create those.  By over laying colors, you can create a unique and inspiring look.  Once dry, you can add more color and repeat the process.  For a very special project see General Pencil’s website:  www.generalpencil.com. Go to Products and explore “Kathy’s Korner.”  She shows how to create a beautiful shadowbox mat using Kimberly© Watercolor Pencils, even the colors she selected.  This should get you interested in some of the projects on which you could use watercolor pencils.

If you work on any of the supreme Ampersand (www.ampersandart.com) Claybord panels or old-fashioned canvas panels, you have the perfect ground on which to use watercolor pencils.  The firm backing on these materials makes watercolor pencils easy to apply and rework.

Kimberly© Watercolor Pencils come in sets of 8, 12 and 24 assorted colors.  Additionally, specialty sets are color themed into primary, cool, warm, earth and vintage color palettes.  These unique sets are organized in groups of eight.  When you pick the colors you like—and whether you use them, share them or teach—30 colors are available in dozen boxes.  So whatever way you choose, you can have the exact palette and combination you want.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 18 No. 6 — April 2008