Best Watercolor Pencils: What Works on Printed Coloring Pages

Key Takeaways

• Buy watercolor pencils for how completely the core dissolves, not for pigment grade. On a printed sheet you get one short pass with a damp brush, so a soft core that releases color on first contact beats a hard core you have to scrub.
• Soft wax-free cores such as Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft and Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer dissolve faster than the harder Derwent Watercolour core, which is why they suit thin paper better.
• Derwent Inktense is water-soluble only until it dries. Once dry it sets permanently and will not rewet, so pick Derwent Watercolour instead if you want to go back and soften an area.
• A 24 pencil set covers every coloring page you will print. Sets run from 12 up to 120 pencils, and past about 36 you are paying for shades you can mix by layering.

Who this is for: Beginners and hobby colorists choosing a first watercolor pencil set to use on printed coloring pages rather than on stretched watercolor paper.

Every watercolor pencil review ranks the same way: pigment load, lightfastness, how the color looks on 140 lb cotton paper. None of that describes what you are doing when you print a coloring page at home and wash it with a damp brush. Printer paper tolerates a fraction of the water that watercolor paper does, so the pencil spec that decides your result is solubility, and it is the one spec almost nobody tests. This guide covers which lines dissolve easily, which one sets permanently and surprises people, what set size is genuinely enough, and how to match the pencil to the paper in your tray.

Solubility Matters More Than Pigment Grade

A watercolor pencil holds its pigment in a water-soluble gum binder, which is the entire difference between it and a standard colored pencil. Prismacolor Premier uses a wax binder and Faber-Castell Polychromos uses an oil binder, and water will not dissolve either one. The gum binder is what lets a damp brush turn your pencil marks into a wash.

How readily that binder lets go is the spec that matters on printed paper. Standard printer paper is 20 lb, roughly 75 gsm, against 65 lb to 110 lb for cardstock and 140 lb for watercolor paper. On a 20 lb sheet you get one short pass with a damp brush before the paper cockles and the surface starts to pill. A soft, highly soluble core releases its color inside that one pass. A hard core needs you to work the brush back and forth to break the pigment loose, and that scrubbing is exactly what tears damp copy paper.

This inverts the usual advice. Artist lines compete on lightfastness, which rates how well a pigment resists fading under light over years of display. That rating is worth real money on a painting you intend to frame. On a free printable you can reprint in under a minute, it buys you nothing. Spend the money on a core that dissolves cleanly instead.

The Lines Worth Knowing

Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft Aquarelle has the softest and most soluble core of the widely sold artist lines. It lays down heavy color dry and lifts almost completely with one damp pass, which is the behavior you want on thin paper. It is also the most expensive option here.

Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer is the artist-grade line and dissolves nearly as well. Faber-Castell also sells Goldfaber Aqua, the student-grade version of the same idea at a much lower price. The Goldfaber Aqua core is slightly harder, but on a printed sheet the gap between the two lines is far smaller than the price gap.

Derwent Watercolour has a harder core that rewards a wetter brush and more patience. It performs well on cardstock and frustrates people on copy paper. Derwent also makes Inktense, and this is the trap in the category: Inktense is ink-based, and it dissolves beautifully right up until it dries, at which point it sets permanently and will not rewet at all. That permanence is the point for anyone painting on fabric. If you want to come back and soften an edge the next day, it is the wrong purchase.

Crayola and Staedtler sell the budget end, usually in small sets. The pigment is weaker and the colors are less subtle, but the cores are soft and water-soluble, which is the property that counts here. For a child washing a printed page, a cheap soft set outperforms an expensive hard one.

Try a new set on something with large open shapes before you commit to a detailed page. The broad petals in our flowers collection and the wide water in waterfalls give you room to see how far a single wash spreads. Every page in both collections downloads free as a printable PDF with no sign-up and no account, so testing a pencil costs you a sheet of paper.

What Set Size Actually Buys

Watercolor pencil sets run from 12 pencils up to 120 in the Albrecht Durer range. A 12 pencil set is genuinely limiting, because you cannot mix a convincing green or a warm shadow from six saturated hues. A 24 pencil set covers everything you will meet on a coloring page, and it is the size to buy first.

Past about 36 pencils you are paying for shades you can produce by layering two you already own. Watercolor pencils blend more willingly than wax pencils do, since the wash itself merges adjacent colors, so the case for a huge set is weaker here than for standard colored pencils. Put the money into a second set of the colors you burn through instead.

One exception: skin tones and grays are hard to mix and worth having premixed. If you color portraits or detailed lotus mandalas where you want controlled shading, a 36 count set earns its place.

Match the Pencil to the Paper in Your Tray

The paper decides more than the pencil does. On 20 lb copy paper, use a soft soluble core and a barely damp brush, and accept a light wash. On 32 lb bond or cardstock you can use a harder core and more water, and the sheet will stay flat. Our guide to printer paper for coloring pages covers the weights in detail, and how to use watercolor pencils covers the four techniques each stock will take.

The practical move is to print the same page twice. Wash one copy and leave the other dry as a reference, which costs nothing when the download is free. Busy line work like fish scales rewards this, because you learn where the water runs before you commit on a page you care about.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Derwent or Faber-Castell better?

For printed coloring pages, Faber-Castell. The Albrecht Durer core is softer and more soluble than Derwent Watercolour, so it releases color in the single damp pass that 20 lb paper allows. Derwent Watercolour is the better choice on cardstock or watercolor paper, where you can work a wetter brush without damaging the surface. Both are artist-grade lines with strong pigment.

Are Crayola watercolor pencils any good?

Yes, for children and for learning the medium, and no for subtle work. The cores are soft and dissolve easily, which is the property that matters most on printer paper. What you give up is pigment strength and color range, so washes look pale and mixing muddies faster. For a child coloring printed pages, that tradeoff is the right one at the price.

What is the difference between watercolor pencils and water-soluble colored pencils?

Nothing. They are two names for the same product, and brands use them interchangeably. Prismacolor labels its line water-soluble while Faber-Castell and Derwent say watercolor, but both describe a pigment core held in a gum binder that a damp brush dissolves. If a package says water-soluble, aquarelle, or aqua, it washes.

Do watercolor pencils work in a coloring book?

Poorly, and this is where printables genuinely win. A bound book prints on both sides of the sheet, so water that soaks through ruins the page behind the one you are coloring, and you cannot replace it. A printed page has nothing on the back and costs one reprint if a wash goes wrong. If you only own a book, slide a sheet of cardstock underneath and keep the brush nearly dry.

Start With a Page You Can Reprint

Buy a 24 pencil set with a soft core, skip the lightfastness ratings, and avoid Inktense unless you want your work permanent. Then spend your first hour on pages you can print again rather than on expensive paper, because learning how much water a sheet takes means ruining a few sheets. Browse coloringden.com and print a few from butterflies or flowers to practice on. Every page on the site is a free printable PDF, with no sign-up and no account needed.