After seeing these Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble wax pastels all over the place for a long time, I found them on sale and decided to add them to my art supply collection. In this post, I’ll take you through the unboxing and initial swatching that I did when I first opened this set and then I’ll show you the first thing I drew with them!

If you’ve watched my art supply organization and office tour video you might have gotten the sense that I tend to be little more on the “minimal” side when it comes to spaces and supplies. Though I suppose this is relative.

I do try to be pretty selective about what I choose to purchase and ultimately even after I acquire things, I reassess quite frequently what I want to keep around. So I was pretty excited about getting this set because I’ve never actually used watersoluble wax pastels because I’ve never used them before.

Apparently I was so excited that I didn’t open it for 3 months. But here we are in this video and I’m opening them up and swatching them to get a feel for how they draw and what happens when water is applied to them. Watch the video or read on for my first impressions and see what I first made with them.

First Impressions

Packaging

The package is shrink wrapped in plastic (unfortunately), but otherwise came minimally packaged with just a cardboard paper sleeve. Inside there’s a cute set of stickers (though I don’t know what I’ll do with them) and a small vellum informational insert about the company.

The crayons are held in place with a foam strip at the top. I assume that this is provided so that they don’t bang around in transit. However when using the set, it was easier and less fussy to get them in and out without the foam strip, so I took it out.

Range of Colors

First of all, I think the range of colors in this set of 30 is really nice. It doesn’t feel too limited, but it doesn’t feel like too many either. The only comment I’ll make is that after swatching them, it feels like the purple shades are quite close in color and I personally don’t see myself needing so many shades of purple.

There are other sets available as well as singles. If you are just curious about how these work, you could even just start with a few singles and selecting the colors you want. Or start with a smaller set. As of the time of writing this, I found the following sets on Amazon:

• Set of 10

• Set of 15

• Set of 30

• Set of 40

• Set of 84

You can also find these at art supply stores. I got my set from a local art supply store during a sale.

Marking & Adding Water

The marks made on dry paper feel as I would expect a wax pastel to feel. Creamy and “thick” with skipping that creates a really nice texture, especially on cold press paper.

I think I assumed that adding water to them would require some work to activate the color but that was not the case at all! I was surprised to see that the color was immediately activated and not only that, it felt pretty creamy and was more vibrant than I expected.

I found that you can dissolve the pastel to a point where you can still see your marks and the texture underneath. But you can also continue brushing to make all the pastel dissolve pretty much completely into watercolor paint.

One thing to note is that even after drying, you should anticipate that the crayon will act as if you have just put it down. So just be aware that layering or glazing might be difficult with the use of these wax pastels.

Overall First Impression

I can attest to the fact that the quality reflect the cost of these watersoluble wax pastels. They are great quality, the colors are vibrant, and I think there are so many possibilities to use these in different ways.

I have yet to really explore them yet, but I did experiment with them on a small sketch where I used the pastels to draw the entire image, and then added water to the drawing to activate the pastels.

I hope that this post was helpful in case you were curious about these Caran d'Ache  Neocolor II watercolor pastels!

As always, thank you for reading,
Susan

P.S. This post was not sponsored but the links above may contain affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!