Vivid examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils

Real-world examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils

Let’s skip the vague theory and jump straight into examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils that you can actually test on a scrap sheet.

Picture a basic practice page: a few rectangles, circles, and simple shapes. In each one, you try a different way of blending. That page alone can teach you more than hours of random doodling.

Below are some of the best examples of how to blend watercolor pencils, each tied to a subject you might actually want to draw.

Example of dry-on-dry blending: smooth sky gradient

Dry-on-dry means you use dry pencils on dry paper, then activate the pigment with water afterward.

Imagine you’re drawing a sunset sky. Start with three colors: a warm yellow, an orange, and a soft magenta.

Lightly shade the yellow at the horizon, then overlap it with orange in the middle, and magenta higher up. Keep your pencil strokes light and even, overlapping the colors where they meet. At this stage, it will look like regular colored pencil.

Now load a soft brush with clean water, tap off the excess, and gently pull the yellow upward into the orange, then the orange into the magenta. The pigments dissolve and flow together, creating a smooth gradient.

This is one of the clearest examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils because you can see immediately how pressure, overlap, and water amount change the result. If you see hard edges, you used too little water or moved too slowly. If you see puddles and backruns, you used too much water.

Wet-on-dry example: crisp flower petals

Wet-on-dry means applying wet pigment (from a damp brush and pencil) onto dry paper. It’s perfect when you want more control and sharper edges.

Let’s say you’re painting a red flower. Lightly sketch the petal shapes with a red watercolor pencil. Then, instead of coloring in the whole petal, dip your brush in water, rub it gently on the pencil tip to pick up pigment, and paint the color onto the dry paper.

You get the look of traditional watercolor with the precision of a pencil. To blend, you can drop a second color—say a darker crimson—near the petal base while the first color is still damp, then pull it outward with a clean, slightly damp brush.

This wet-on-dry method is a great example of blending techniques with watercolor pencils that keeps edges defined while still allowing soft transitions inside each petal.

Wet-on-wet example: dreamy backgrounds and soft shadows

Wet-on-wet means you wet the paper first, then add pigment. This is how you get those soft, dreamy blends with almost no visible edges.

Try this with a simple round fruit, like an apple. Lightly draw the shape. Then, with a clean brush, wet the area just outside the apple to create a halo where your background will go.

While that area is still shiny but not puddling, touch your brush (loaded with pigment from a blue or green pencil) to the wet paper. The color blooms and spreads. Add a second color—maybe a warmer tone—nearby and let them merge.

Because the paper is already wet, the colors naturally blend into each other. This is one of the best examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils for backgrounds, fog, or soft shadows under objects.

If you’re curious about how water and pigment behave on different papers, art education sites like the Smithsonian Learning Lab often feature watercolor lesson plans that echo this same wet-on-wet concept.

Layering and glazing example: realistic skin tones

Layering (or glazing) is where watercolor pencils really shine. Instead of trying to mix the perfect skin tone in one go, you build it in transparent layers.

Start with a very light peach or yellow ochre base. Use a soft, even layer and activate it with a light wash of water. Let it dry completely. Dry time can vary depending on humidity and paper, but giving it a few minutes is usually enough.

Once dry, add a second dry layer: maybe a pink or light red in the cheeks, nose, and ears, plus a tiny bit of light brown in the shadow areas. Activate selectively with a barely damp brush, blending those accents into the base.

You can repeat this process, glazing over the same areas with thin, transparent layers. Each layer slightly tints what’s underneath without completely covering it. That’s how you get believable, luminous skin rather than a flat, single-color face.

This is a subtle but powerful example of blending techniques with watercolor pencils, and it’s very similar to how watercolor painters glaze with traditional paints.

Burnishing-style example: colored pencil look with watercolor backup

Even though watercolor pencils are water-activated, you can still use them like regular colored pencils and then selectively blend.

Imagine a leaf. First, lightly block in the entire leaf with a mid-green, then add dark green in the veins and shadows, and a bit of yellow on the sunlit edges. Keep your strokes following the direction of the leaf.

Now, before adding water, go back in with heavier pressure—this is your burnishing step. You’re pressing harder to fill the tooth of the paper and blend colors mechanically. You can use a light green or even a cream color pencil to smooth transitions.

After burnishing, you might choose to activate only certain areas with water: maybe the shadowed side of the leaf, leaving the highlighted side more textured and pencil-like. This hybrid approach gives you a controlled example of blending techniques with watercolor pencils that combines dry blending with selective water activation.

Gradient bar example: testing color transitions before a finished piece

Every good watercolor pencil artist I know keeps a test page nearby. One of the most practical examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils is a simple gradient bar.

Draw a long rectangle. At one end, lay down a strong layer of blue. At the other end, a strong layer of yellow. In the middle, lightly overlap them with less pressure.

Now activate the gradient with a clean, damp brush, starting in the yellow and moving toward the blue. Watch where they meet and create green. Try it again, but this time start your brush in the blue and move toward the yellow. The direction you move the brush changes how the blend looks.

You can repeat this with other color pairs—red to blue, orange to purple, etc. These are simple but powerful examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils that help you predict mixes before you commit to a final drawing.

Textured blending example: fur, grass, and hair

Not all blending needs to be silky smooth. Sometimes you want broken color and texture, especially for fur, grass, or hair.

Let’s say you’re drawing a brown dog. Instead of one flat brown wash, start with quick, directional strokes of a light brown pencil, following the direction of the fur. Add a darker brown in the shadowed areas, using short, overlapping strokes. Maybe even a bit of warm gray or reddish brown in spots.

Rather than flooding it with water, use a barely damp brush and tap or lightly drag it along the fur direction. You’re softening and slightly blending the colors together, but you’re not erasing the texture of the strokes.

This is a subtle example of blending techniques with watercolor pencils where the goal is controlled softness, not a perfectly smooth gradient. You can apply the same idea to grass: multiple greens, quick vertical strokes, and a light touch with water.

Metallic and glass example: sharp blends and hard edges

For shiny surfaces like metal and glass, you need a mix of sharp edges and very smooth blends.

Picture a chrome spoon. You might start with a light gray base, then add dark gray or even black in the deepest reflections, and a hint of blue where it’s reflecting the sky or surroundings.

Here, one strong example of blending techniques with watercolor pencils is to blend only within each reflection shape. Use a damp brush to smooth the gradient inside a reflection, but leave hard edges between reflections. You get that crisp, reflective look instead of a soft, velvety one.

For glass, you can keep more of the paper white and use very light, watery glazes of color. Blend gently so your transitions are soft but not overworked. This style of blending pairs well with lessons on light and reflection you’ll see in many college-level drawing courses; for instance, universities like MIT OpenCourseWare host free materials on visual perception and light that can deepen your understanding of how reflections work.

Trend watch 2024–2025: how artists are using watercolor pencil blends now

Over the last couple of years, watercolor pencils have exploded on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. A few trends keep showing up in recent tutorials and workshops:

• Mixed-media journals where artists combine watercolor pencil blends with ink linework or gel pens.
• Urban sketching kits that rely heavily on watercolor pencils for portability; artists lay down fast dry color on location, then blend with a water brush later.
• Digital-to-traditional crossovers, where artists plan color blends on tablets, then reproduce those as real examples with watercolor pencils on paper.

Many art educators and community programs, including those highlighted by organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts, encourage accessible mediums like watercolor pencils because they’re portable, less messy than tubes, and intuitive for beginners.

If you’re learning at home, you can treat these online trends as living examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils—pause a video, recreate the blend on your own paper, and adjust until it feels right in your hands.

Practical tips to improve any blending technique

No matter which examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils you try, a few habits make everything easier:

Keep two water containers: one for rinsing dirty pigment off your brush, one for clean water. This avoids accidental muddy mixes.

Use the right paper. Regular printer paper buckles and pills. Look for at least 140 lb (300 gsm) watercolor paper. Many art programs and museum education departments, such as those featured through the Library of Congress, emphasize paper choice because it dramatically affects how water and pigment behave.

Work from light to dark. It’s much easier to deepen a color than to pull it back once it’s too dark.

Let layers dry fully before glazing. If the paper is even slightly damp, your new layer may bloom and backrun instead of staying where you put it.

Test mixes in the margin. Before you try a new blend on your main piece, try a quick example of that blend on scrap paper.

FAQ: examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils

Q: What are some simple examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils for beginners?
Start with a basic gradient bar (one color to another), a small sunset sky (yellow to orange to pink), and a single leaf (two or three greens blended together). These examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils teach you how much pressure to use, how much water you need, and how colors mix when they overlap.

Q: Can you give an example of using watercolor pencils without water, but still getting blends?
Yes. You can layer colors with light pressure, then use heavier pressure with a light-colored pencil to burnish and blend them together. That’s a dry blending example of using watercolor pencils like traditional colored pencils. You can always add a touch of water later if you want to soften specific areas.

Q: How do I avoid muddy color when I practice these examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils?
Limit how many colors you mix in one area—two or three is usually enough. Rinse your brush often, use clean water, and let layers dry before adding more. Working from light to dark and testing mixes on scrap paper first also helps keep your blends clear instead of murky.

Q: Are there real examples of professional artists using watercolor pencil blends in finished work?
Absolutely. Many illustrators use watercolor pencils for book covers, children’s books, and editorial work because they offer both line precision and painterly blends. You’ll see them mentioned in art school syllabi and workshops, and in online classes hosted by museums, universities, and arts organizations.

Q: What’s a good example of a practice routine to master blending?
Set aside one page per week as a “blend lab.” Fill it with small boxes or circles and try a different blend in each: dry-on-dry gradient, wet-on-wet background, layered skin tone, textured grass, shiny metal, and so on. Over time, those pages become your personal library of examples of blending techniques with watercolor pencils that you can reference whenever you start a new piece.

If you treat each subject you draw as a testbed—sky, leaf, skin, metal, fur—you’ll quickly build your own set of real examples that feel natural in your hand, not just good on paper.