Art Journal: Geisha
Wed, September 29, 2010 at 02:00PM 
9x12" gesso, fluid acrylics, neocolors, B&W photo
Falling in love with Caran d'Ache Neocolor II's all over again! They are so darned vibrant.
It might seem overwhelming to decide which colors to buy. What ultimately worked out great was to simply pick the colors I liked. This is not necessarily the list of the colors that I thought I should get, in order to achieve <the perfect artistic variety>. Let's say you have $21 to spend on neocolors. When I checked they were $1.48 per stick. It's less expensive to buy them individually. Plus you won't get colors you don't want. So you could buy 14. For example, 1 black, 1 brown or sepia, 3 blues/purples, 2 pinks, 2 greens, 2 orange/yellows, 1 red, 1 white, 1 metallic (i.e. copper or silver).
Look at your art journal pages. If you seriously never use green, you might skip the green or just get one. If you use blue throughout your journal, you might get another blue. I could easily art journal for a year with that many neocolors. They last a long time. Once you start using them, you'll see what colors you are drawn to most and you can widen the array from there. More thoughts on art materials at Step #399: Art Supplies. There are lots of art journal pages with grungy/graffiti textures made with neocolors in Tekenfilm Altered Book. And a mandala at neon.black. Oh... and you can get them wet! Check out Neocolors in Moleskine and Pink + Orange Neo-Cities. Plus, I like them 1000x better than oil pastels.
Reader Comments (5)
Great post Tammy!! I bought some watercolor crayons and you're right they are STRONG and VIBRANT.....I'm usually all over that but, I don't know what to do with them.....The drawing is chunky too, so I'm really not sure what the best is for me to use them? Any suggestions? Remember....I'm a marker girl.
I Love these too. And a great side note. Those plastic cases to organize photos in the scrapbooking section. These crayons fit in those Perfectly. That makes them perfect for travelling. They don't get broken in transit. The little cases are pretty cheap too.
Eden, Great question. Neocolors are definitely not an alternative to markers - they are completely different - knowing your artistic style, my thoughts would include colorizing a doodle but not drawing to the very edges, then wetting a brush and spreading the neocolors as you wish, using them as you would watercolor pencils perhaps.
Rita, Yes, the photo boxes would be perfect!
I keep neocolors in little plastic boxes - the brand is Tellfresh. Here's what they look like: http://www.containerstore.com/shop?productId=10006385&N=&Ntt=tellfresh. Either the photo boxes suggested by Rita or these rectangular boxes would work for travel as well. In a zip-lok they would break.
Tammy
LOVE the Caran d'Ache! I haven't used mine in a while. But I did take Samantha Kira's advice and get an ArtBin at Dick Blick to organize them in. It's just a small one. Now they won't break! I did keep them in a zippered pouch for a while but a couple did break.
Only thing that bugs me about them is if you use them for an art journal page background, you really can't use Pitts or Microns over them. The wax stops those pens up...
Another fan of the neocolors weighing in! I love their vibrancy and the slightly weird and unexpected way they blend, and the way you can kind of push the color around with a waterbrush to get some shading.
I've also made a mistake trying to write over them with pen - have definitely clogged a few microns and gel pens that way. I've had partial success using a fountain pen over them - but you do get a bit of wax on the nib, which I think would make most fountain pen owners just about faint.