I absolutely love using watercolour pencils for sketching on location as they are such a versatile tool.

I’ve always had some watercolour pencils in my kit (since Sketchbook Number 1!) and over the years have developed different ways to use them.

In this article (UPDATED IN 2026) I’ll share two selections of Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils by Faber Castell which I use in my Foundations and Travel Sketching SketchingNow courses, some videos showing how I use them and lots of examples from my sketchbooks over the years.

Some people think of watercolour pencils (WCPs) as an alternative to watercolour – a more manageable way to create watercolour sketches,. While you can certainly use them that way, I prefer to treat them as a water-soluble drawing tool. That means that I like seeing the pencil strokes!

I also like adding watercolour rather than just water over the top. This is because many WCPs lose intensity when you add water and lift too easily. By adding paint over the top you can maintain intensity and also adjust the hue creating what I call complex colour. You can see this in the above photo.

Recommended Watercolour Pencil Selections

I have two options for recommended selections of watercolour pencils – a standard palette that I’ve used for many years and is on the materials list for my Foundations course. The colours in this set relate to the hues of my watercolour palette. 

The second one is a more unusual palette that I developed for my Travel Sketching Course. The idea for this selection was to use colours that were different from my watercolour palette and include some creamy opaque pencils. As I adjust the hues of my WCPs with watercolour I’m happy to use unrealistic colours.

Here are two pages of thumbnails usings the WCPs dry (without adding any water or watercolour). On the left colours from the Foundations set, on the right using the Travel Sketching selection.

Here is an example from my Travel Sketching Course where you can see how I adjust hues:  a grey wash over the light blue of the distant mountains, and a muted green over the brown ochre strokes in the foreground.

Foundations Set of Watercolour Pencils

Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils by Faber Castell:
Cadmium Yellow 107 – Deep Scarlet Red 219 – Middle Purple Pink 125 – Dark Indigo 157 – Ultramarine 120 – Permanent Green Olive 167 – Brown Ochre 182 – Burnt Sienna 283 – Walnut Brown 177 – Warm Grey IV 273

2026 comment: I still love using these colours and the only adjustment I have made to this selection is to add 132 Beige Red so that I have a lighter colour in the set.

Travel Sketching Set of Watercolour Pencils

Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils by Faber Castell:
104 Light Yellow Glaze – 188 Sanguine – 140 Light Ultramarine – 174 Chromium Green Opaque – 182 Brown Ochre – 232 Cold Grey III – 157 Dark Indigo – 132 Beige Red – 103 Ivory

More about this set here.

2026 update: I find the Ivory colour very useful on the bright white paper of Alpha but if you are using off-white or cream paper it might not be visible. If that’s the case I’d use 270 Warm Grey I instead.

How I use watercolour pencils – two short videos

Here are two videos that show how I use watercolour pencils.

Sketches using watercolour pencils

A few examples of using watercolour pencils dry…

A few examples using a little water to active the watercolour pencils but still keeping most of the stroke visible…

Lots of examples combining watercolour with WCP…

And the final group of examples show how I combine watercolour pencils with markers (such as Tombows or Goldfaber Aqua Dual Markers)…

Please let me know in the comment section below if you have any questions.

Check out more WCP articles here