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Has anyone tried/use Neocolor II crayons? They are watercolor crayons.
If yes, what do you think of them? do you like using them? do they color well? How are they compared to watercolor pencils like Prismacolor or Derwent pencils?
THANKS! in advance for your comments!
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I haven't used that brand of watercolor crayons but Caran D'ache is definitely a brand I trust. I've heard very good things about these.
Watercolor crayons are great for backgrounds since they can easily be used to cover a large area with color. You can remove the wrapper and color with the entire side of the crayon to cover a background quickly and easily. Pencils are wonderful for adding texture and finer details once you have larger areas of color blocked in.
I have a smallish set of these - I don't play with them nearly enough! As Dina says, they're great for bigger areas and there's plenty of pigment. They're a slightly "milkier" colour than something like a dye-based ink would be. You can colour an area and then wet it and let it run for interesting effects. It does dry with a slightly waxy finish so you need to plan for that if you're going to stamp over the top and use an appropriate ink for the stamping.
It's a bit difficult to do a comparison with pencils because you'd generally use them under different circumstances. If you want to colour very detailed images then pencils are a better bet because of the finer point. That said, you can take colour directly off the NeoColor crayons with a damp paintbrush or scribble a pool of colour onto a palette and use it from there so I guess you're only limited by how small of a brush you use!
I ended up going with the Artbars (Derwent) after some comparisons I read online about the intensity of the color - I had a little Google Hangout with a few people after I bought them, and there were people on the Hangout with Neocolors that definitely didn't get some of the same results with color and intensity and the way they spread around on the page. It was fun to see both in action live, but my two cents is to try the artbars. Or get a small set of both and play and see what your preference is! Some people prefer one texture over another.
I have some that I got on FreeCycle. I like them, don't (didn't) use them enough.
BUT, they don't keep well if you have extremes of temperature! Most of mine are now only fit for crumbling into water and using as paint. And I don't generally have a problem with storage - some of my EP is ten years old and still works fine, some of my inks are more like twenty years old.
Love neocolor II's! First tried them in college, we had a choice of getting oil pastels or neocolor II's. Ive used them without any water for a long time, just blending with my fingers and stumps. When I want to use them with water I generally use a wet brush on the flat end of the crayon to pick up color. I find it creamy and it can cover black lines so If you dont want that you have to make sure you color in the lines or use less pigment. They dont compare to any sort of pencil or solid stick because they can be used like oil pastels, you can layer with them and move them around with a finger. They can seem a little stiff on the page at first but friction helps them warm up and move around. HTH =) Also, you can find neocolor II's as open stock, so you can get just one to test out.
My most vibrant art supplies are my Neo IIs and my Inktense pencils/bars. Although I love the inktense more for being both water-soluble and permanent, the Neocolors have their own lovely qualities: rich, creamy colors than come alive when given a wet brush, made possible by their high pigment loads. I wish I had bought the whole set! Thankfully, I can still build them up through buying open stock. I use these to make colorful backgrounds for mixed media projects and art journal pages, but the possibilities go so much further.
Since I discovered gelatos I never use my watercolor crayons. Crayons were never my fav type of watercolor so not using them wasn't a big issue. I always seemed to have trouble of being able to not see the lines where I colored. I keep them just in case I decide to practice more to get the same look as I do with other watercolor mediums.
I was given a very slightly used set of 84 of the neocolors II by an artist friend. They are just wonderful. They make beautiful backgrounds. I love how they flow. There is a video showing how they can be used with clear and white gesso and some of the other media gels. You can just google video+caran d ache. The video is a little long but you can skip around. There is also a short Dick Blick video that shows how they flow. I have had mine about eight years and only the silver one cracked a little. Probably best to keep them at room temp though. I like the idea of buying one or two and just see how you like them. I love them in color families in backgrounds and water brushed.
Neocolor II crayons?
