Experimenting with Neocolor II Water-soluble crayons

On Tuesday, my morning colored pencil class and I experimented with the Neocolor II crayons as an underpainting for our still life drawings. In advance for the lesson, I prepared the surface for us to use. I took a sheet of gatorboard and covered it with with two coats of Storm Blue Colourfix liquid primer then cut it into 8x10" pieces for each person. The surface worked out perfectly for our application of the Neocolor crayons, a little water and then colored pencil on top. Colored Pencil artist Ranjini Venkatachari uses this method so successfully, I wanted to give it a try. I read my class Ranjini's recent blog post on how she uses the Neocolor II crayons with colored pencil and then we tried it.

In attempt to keep the lesson simple, our still life subjects were different pitchers and each student chose one. First we applied the Neocolor II crayons lightly and evenly all over the drawing, not paying attention to detail and blocking in large areas. We only had small sets of Neocolors so we had to choose from what colors were available. Secondly we brushed on water and wet the crayon, dissolving it and giving the background a smooth underpainting. Next the surface had to dry and we found we could speed up the process by using a hair dryer and after it was dry we began adding in colored pencil and start drawing and defining colors, shapes and values. The surface is so textured that it will take many layers of pencil and crayon and I even added more crayon on top of the pencil giving it almost the look of a pastel. Pictured is my experimental drawing which I really had fun with.

Now I am anxious to buy a BIG set of the crayons and experiment more of this method. So I'm looking for a sale on-line!