Neocolor II: 5 Mistakes to Avoid When You're Starting Out
ondine de perettiJust bought a box of Neocolor II, or have you had one for a while without quite knowing how to tame it?
🖍️ It's one of the most versatile and creative mediums out there: you can use it dry, like a pastel, or activate it with water for limitless creativity. But it's also a medium that takes a bit of getting used to at first.
In my video Neocolor II: 5 Mistakes to Avoid, I go over the most common mistakes I see — mistakes I made myself when I was starting out. Here, I go through these five points in detail, so you can easily refer back to them and progress more confidently with this medium.
Common mistakes:
- Not Pressing Hard Enough
- Not Wanting to Sharpen Your Neocolor
- Not Matching Your Paper to the Technique You're Using
- Buying a Ready-Made Palette Instead of Individual Colours
- Leaving Them in a Drawer
👉 You can find the full demonstration in the video right here: Neocolor II: 5 Mistakes to Avoid.
Not Pressing Hard Enough
When you're starting out with Neocolor II, you often have the reflex to hold it like a regular coloured pencil, with light pressure. The result: a textured look where you can still see the direction of your strokes.
But the main appeal of Neocolor II is precisely its coverage. It's a creamy medium, designed to lay down a lot of pigment. To get a smooth, even, vibrant flat wash, you need to press firmly right from the first pass. If you press lightly and go over it several times to compensate, the pigment builds up unevenly and the result stays patchy. A firm pressure from the start gives a much more even result.
Not Wanting to Sharpen Your Neocolor
Since Neocolor II are pastels and not wood-encased pencils, sharpening them means 'losing' material — which often makes you want to keep them intact for as long as possible. It's a hesitation I completely understand, and one I went through myself.
The problem is that without a properly sharpened point, it's impossible to get fine lines or precision in small areas (detailed foliage, for example). If you're after precision, don't hesitate to sharpen. On the other hand, if you're working on large flat areas that don't require fine detail, it's not a requirement.
My tips for reducing wear:
- Keep the shavings from sharpening: they can be reused, especially once moistened with water to create a wash close to watercolour paint.
- For large areas, peel the protective paper off just one side of the pastel and always use that same side: this keeps a fine point on the other side, so you don't have to keep re-sharpening.
- For large flat washes, lay the pastel on its edge rather than the tip: this preserves the point while still covering large surfaces.
Check out my blog post to discover the basic techniques for watercolour pastels.
Not Matching Your Paper to the Technique You're Using
Neocolor II can be used dry or with water, and these two approaches call for different papers.
For dry techniques, a smooth paper like bristol (180 gsm, for example) gives a very opaque, even result. On a textured paper, the same pressure will leave small white specks where the paper's grain shows through — interesting if you're after a textured effect, but frustrating if you're aiming for a perfectly smooth flat wash.
For wet techniques, it's the opposite: bristol doesn't hold up well to water (and its weight is often too light), so the colour becomes uneven and dries unevenly. You should go for real watercolour paper, around 300 gsm, ideally with a fine grain, which absorbs water evenly and is easier to control.
In short: there's no such thing as a 'bad' paper on its own — just a paper that's mismatched to the effect you're after.
Find my material recommendations in my blog article: Everything You Need to Know About Watercolour Pastels
Buying a Ready-Made Palette Instead of Individual Colours
When you're starting out, it's natural to gravitate towards the small pre-assembled boxes of basic colours. It's convenient, but these palettes often contain very bright, very bold colours that are hard to harmonise with each other into soft, subtle tones.
I'd recommend instead buying Neocolor II individually (plenty of sites and shops offer them this way) and putting together your own selection of about ten colours, chosen because you like them and they work well together. The result is a much more subtle, more personal palette — one you'll actually want to use in full, rather than a box where half the colours go unused because they don't suit you.
Leaving Them in a Drawer
The last mistake has nothing to do with technique: it's simply not using them. This is feedback I got a lot during a Neocolor challenge I ran for my community on Instagram — many people had had Neocolor II for a long time but had never taken them out, not knowing where to start. I went through that too: mine sat unopened for several years.
The only real way to get better with this medium is to handle it regularly.
That challenge turned into a free mini-course that walks you step by step through both dry and wet techniques — a great way to put what we just covered into practice right away.
In Short
Neocolor II is a medium that takes a bit of practice, but it's incredibly rewarding once you've got the right habits down: pressing firmly, sharpening when precision calls for it, choosing the right paper for the technique, building your palette one colour at a time, and — most importantly — taking them out of the drawer!
👉 To see all these techniques demonstrated, the full video is available here: Neocolor II: 5 Mistakes to Avoid.
Ready to Take It Further?
If you want to move past these five mistakes for good and really deepen your practice, my complete online course for beginners on water-soluble pastels is waiting for you.
FAQ
Do you need water to use Neocolor II?
No. Neocolor II works very well dry, just like a regular pastel. Water is an extra option, not a requirement — which is exactly what makes this medium so versatile.
What's the best paper for starting out with Neocolor II?
It depends on the technique: a smooth bristol paper for opaque dry results, or a fine-grain watercolour paper around 300 gsm if you plan to use water.
How many colours do you need to get started?
About ten colours chosen individually is plenty to start with a harmonious palette, rather than a large ready-made box.
