How To Use Watercolor Markers - The Virtual Instructor

Applying Watercolor Markers to the Pen and Ink Drawing

Just like with traditional watercolors, we must rely on the “white” of the paper to produce our highlights and also to affect the lighter values. This means we must be cautious of getting too dark with our applications too quickly. For this reason, we’ll start with less intense applications of color and work our way up to more intense applications.

To help control the intensity of the color, we’ll pull the color from a palette. After applying the watercolor marker to the palette, we’ll lift the pigment with a lightly loaded brush and apply it to the painting surface. We’ll begin with Yellow Ochre, covering the entirety of the shell. This is followed by applications of additional warm colors such as Burnt Umber and Cadmium Red Hue.

We’ll continue to slowly build up the intensity of the color and range of value by layering additional applications of these colors and mixtures of these colors.

Although the bulk of the seashell consists of warmer colors, we’ll begin adding some cooler colors for the shadows. This will create more contrast between the highlights and shadows and result in a more colorful seashell. Diaoxazine Purple and Cerulean Blue Hue are applied in the shadowed areas.

Gradually, we can begin increasing the contrast. As the contrast in vale is enhanced, the form of the seashell begins to make more sense. A touch of black is used in the darker areas to bump up the shadows.

To push the contrast even further, we’ll next apply the marker directly to the surface and then activate with water and a brush. To do this, we’ll return with some of our initial warm colors – mainly with Burnt Umber and Yellow Ochre.

These more intense, darker applications are applied sparingly in selected areas.

After building up a range of value and color on the shell, we’re ready to address the cast shadow underneath. In this case, I wanted the cast shadow to be fairly strong so I started with direct applications of the watercolor markers directly to the surface. Cerulean Blue Hue is applied first, followed by Ivory Black.

As I began activating the colors on the left side of the shadow, the mixing was predictable. But I as moved across to the right side of the shadow, I noticed that the markers had begun to dry and activating and mixing became difficult. It became clear that watercolor markers, unlike watercolor pencils, had an “activation period”. This means that there is a limited amount of time that one can activate the watercolor markers before they dry. Once they are dry, they are very difficult to activate.

As you’ll notice in the image above, the left side of the shadow gradates as expected. But on the right side, the blue and black are segmented and there is little gradation.

To alleviate this, I decided to go back over the shadow with hatching. This harmonizes the image and helps to soften the lack of gradation of color and value. And as an added bonus, it strengthens the shadow as well.

To further soften the transition, I also went over the shadow with a bit of black, taken directly from the tip of the marker.

To finish the image, some of the lines are strengthened and made slightly larger with the pen and ink. This subtle variety in line quality adds more weight to the seashell.

Watercolor Markers – Conclusion

Watercolor markers are an interesting medium. Some will find them an exciting addition to their collection of art materials. I can see the appeal and I enjoyed using them to create this lesson and the image of the seashell. It’s clear that the results are very similar to what we see with traditional watercolor, but in some cases extra steps must be taken to use them in this manner. They do travel well and can be used without the need to carry around watercolor pans or tubes. This makes them excellent for sketchbook work, which is what I see as their most appealing characteristic.