This is the second in the series of Ask Ali blog posts, I hope you enjoyed the first on regarding Pearlex and if you missed it, pop back to the main blog page and scroll through the previous posts to find it.

This week I wanted to talk to you about watercolour markers, there are lots of brands on the market and they differ in colour range and price so it’s a case of assessing your budget and seeing what it allows. What are they used for? They are a way of getting colour down on to the surface, in pen form, that can be blended with a brush or tool that delivers water to make washes and a controllable watercolour look to your project.

For many years I have used water soluble pens to create texture in my work but the problem with using cheap pens is that they are not necessarily lightfast and that poses an issue if you are thinking about selling your work in an exhibition, as your customer is not going to be best pleased if it starts fading in a hurry!

Therefore, upgrading to a watercolour marker might be a consideration if you enjoy the expressive marks you can get from using such a tool. I have two brands in my stash - Winsor and Newton and Faber Castell but I prefer the Faber as the colour range suits my work and they are dual ended so you can have a felt-tipped end for detail and a brush style end for larger areas.

Over on the Faber Castell website you can read more about the range and even see some short videos about how to use them, I do love it when a website includes useful information so you can make an informed decision before buying them.

Read more HERE, please note, I am not sponsored at all by Faber.
You can see that there are lots of techniques that they can be used for, even salt technique which I must admit I haven’t tried for myself.

I love them for two reasons, their portability (great for painting on location) but also they give the opportunity for expressive mark making, something (if you have ever attended one of my classes) I am very passionate about.

I don’t tend to use them on their own in a painting, I use them in combination with other media to add detail or to tidy up a painting that has gone astray.

Here is a portrait of the delightful Boo that I had to put together very quickly a few years ago, Because of the speed that I had to produce it, I used watercolour pencils but just couldn’t get the depth of colour in the eyes so used them over the top of the pencils to get greater depth and it was achieved far faster than I would have been able to do it in watercolour.

If you have the pens already lurking in the back of your art cupboard, set them free again and see what you can come up with, I’d love to know what you have done so if you share it on social media, tag @aliboardartist in so I can see the post.

Do you have any suggestions of things you would like to see me cover in the future? Drop me a line, leave a comment here or on social media, I can’t promise to get it in the schedule quickly but will always do my best, Ali