Wednesday Trend: Derwent Inktense Watercolor Pencils

Hi, everybody!  Newbie Trendsetter Carole, here, and today, I'm going to show a quick and dirty way you can get in on the watercolor trend!  Watercoloring stamped images is making a big comeback, but if you're a bright and bold color lover like me, you're loathe to abandon the vibrancy of your alcohol ink markers.  Fear not, fellow stampers - this is one situation where you CAN have it all!

Derwent Inktense Watercolor Pencils (which are available online through a variety of art supplies sources) allow you to have that wispy, soft look of watercolors with the vivid intensity you've come to expect from your Copics.  What's the difference between the Inktense pencils and the other watercolor pencils? Well, according to the Dick Blick website, "Derwent Inktense Pencils are as versatile as watercolor pencils, but with a firmer texture that allows them to perform with the brilliant intensity of traditional pen-and-ink." Thanks, Dick! :)

After Christmas, I'd accumulated enough points on my Amazon account to allow me to obtain a set of 72 Inktense pencils for the low, low price of nuttin'.  Here's what the case looks like:

And here are the purty colors...

Now, before I get started showing you what these bad boys can do,  I want to warn you that I know NOT what the heck I am doing with these.  I've only messed with them once before.  This is truly the blind leading the blind, thus, whatever I can do with these?  You can do, too, and very likely you can do better! 

With that disclaimer out of the way, let's continue.  I stamped TSG's ever popular Sweet Pea image onto watercolor paper with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, then selected three pencils to work with.

I lightly shaded the petals of the flower with the lighter of the purpley-pink pencils:

I took my waterpen and started pushing the color around with the brush...

Nice and bright, don't you think?  Next, I let it dry for a couple of minutes, then I layered on the darker fuscia pencil at the base of the petals...

Then it was time to work on the stems.  First, I traced over the stems with the green pencil, then went over the lines with the waterpen.  Big mistake:

Look at the gloppy mess of green!  I decided I had to start over.  The good news is, in as little time as this process takes (the water does so much of the shading and blending for you), it wasn't a biggie.  This time, I took my brush to the pencil itself and then very lightly lay the color onto the stems:

Much better!  And here's the finished project:

Obviously, I need to work with these pencils A LOT more to develop any sort of proficiency with them, but I do really like the depth of color they deliver.  We all get a little tired of using the same old products to create with, so I think it will be a lot of fun to have the Inktense pencils in my crafty toolbox.

What do you think?  Have you been on the watercolor bandwagon this whole time, or are you hopping back on after a dry spell, like me?  Or, is watercoloring one of those crafty trends you're going to take a pass on?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  And, if you have any questions for me, just leave them as a comment as I will be coming back to this post over the next week to respond.

Thanks for taking the time to hang out with me for a spell today!