The combination of all currently available drawing tools in various combinations allows you to create real masterpieces. However, for this, the artist must be able to draw using a large number of techniques, and have a whole arsenal of tools - pencils and felt-tip pens, crayons and pastels, different types of paints and brushes.
This is not always convenient, therefore, over time, inventions that allow combining the best features of at least two different means are becoming increasingly popular. These examples of human genius include watercolor felt-tip brushes for painting.
What it is?
Creating such an innovation, the developers tried to combine the main advantages of watercolor paint and a classic felt-tip pen or pencil in one case. Judging by their appearance, these are still markers, but the writing substance inside them is, if not watercolor in the direct sense of the word, then something very similar to it in its properties.
The specificity of the drawings created by such a product lies in their similarity both to the classic marker drawing with clear lines and bright detailing, and to watercolor paintings, with their typical blurred outlines and smooth color transitions.
To blur the resulting pattern, other similar devices are used - aqua brushes, filled with a small amount of water, which, due to economical waste, lasts for a very long time. Some manufacturers even produce a colorless solvent for such aqua brushes, which makes it very easy to achieve the finest color transitions.
Unlike ordinary watercolor markers, brush markers also contain a silicone bundle at the opposite end, which significantly expands the horizons of creative possibilities. This engineering solution allows you to get two tools in one case at once.
Main advantages
In spite of its convenience, the universal tool will never compare in quality with highly specialized ones. So are the felt-tip pens - they give a very good result, but they are not in great demand by professional artists yetbecause they prefer classic tools for work.
Nevertheless, such a solution also has a number of advantages that should be noted:
- Ability to draw thin lines and clear contours... Such a tool is indispensable for those who, after all, are not among the greatest artists of all time, to paint the smallest details with a brush. In addition, with the help of such a felt-tip pen, you can add details to the picture originally drawn with paints.
- Ease of use in the open air... Many landscape painters feel inconvenient to carry all the numerous tools with them to nature. Watercolor markers and an aqua brush take up very little space, and even weigh two hundred grams at most.
- Unpretentiousness in the choice of paper... Unlike real watercolors, which require rather thick paper due to the large amount of water used, watercolor markers paint on a basis of any thickness. Unlike ordinary markers, the drawings they have made are not transferred to subsequent pages, which allows you to draw directly in the album.
- Ability to draw on wet paper... Ordinary watercolors are often painted on wet paper, which allows you to achieve a unique effect of strong blur, "trademark" for watercolors. Since this type of felt-tip pens are also watercolors, only they are able to draw directly on wet paper. However, on dry, they also paint perfectly.
Manufacturers
Watercolor felt-tip pens have recently become quite common, but you should not expect to find them in literally every stationery store.
While you can buy them mainly in specialized stores for artists.
Among manufacturers, foreign companies are traditionally distinguished by the highest quality, and there is a certain bias towards Japanese ones - in particular, among the relatively well-known brands from this country there are two at once: Kuretake and Sakura.
For serious occupations, it is their products that should be purchased, sold in series, respectively, ZIG Art & Graphic Twin and Koi, because these firms pay significant attention to the development of this industry. The largest foreign manufacturers of paints in general also did not stand aside from the process - the products of the Dutch Royal talens and English Winsor & Newton deserves full approval.
As for Russian manufacturers, their products are still characterized by much more modest qualities. Among domestic brands, such markers are produced by the famous "Gamma" and "Kalyaka-malyaka".
For information on how to properly work with watercolor markers, see the next video.
