Written by Bright, intense color! Color that pops right off the page! Color that makes your artwork sing! You get all this and more with the beautiful Ecoline Liquid Watercolors from Royal Talens. I am often called the Queen of Color and many of my go-to color products come from Royal Talens. Today I am specifically referencing their Ecoline Liquid Watercolors. Seriously, all you need to add is a paintbrush, some permanent black pens and some water. Let me show you!
The Ecoline Liquid Watercolors dry fast and are reactive. You can re-wet them and continue to work the color, blending, shading, layering. There are many different ways to apply these colors. I will show you a few in this review. I gave them a good workout because the Ecoline products really are at the top of my color products list.
When I reach for a bottle of watercolor I want to know exactly what to expect. For me, the best way to do that is to make a color chart. I pre-wet one sheet of Ecoline Watercolor Paper and placed one drop of color using the pipette in the lid of each jar. Once all the beautiful color was dry I punched a circle of each to adhere in my color swatch book. When I want to use my Ecoline Liquids I can just grab my swatch book and see at a glance how the colors will look.
The easiest way to work with the Ecoline Liquids is wet into wet. By that I mean pre-wet your paper, then drop the liquid color into the water. Easy-peasy. This piece of art was created just that way. I gave my paper a good layer of water, then started dropping different colors into it, using just three colors in the background. When the colors hit the water and start moving, they will mix with another color and begin making new colors. By using lemon yellow, sky blue and magenta I was able to create some purple and green shades as well. Once the background was dry I drew the florals, then colored them using a water brush and more of the liquid watercolor. I can’t tell you how much I love these bright, beautiful Ecoline shades!
These two paintings were also wet into wet. I wanted to compare the appearance of a grey Sharpie and a black Sharpie underneath the Ecoline colors. Both pieces were started by writing song lyrics on my paper. One in grey, one in black. Then I painted the backgrounds using the wet into wet technique. Once dry, I painted the flowers with the liquid watercolors, which is actually a technique called wet onto dry. I noticed the art with the grey Sharpie looks lighter in intensity. The art with the black Sharpie looks brighter, more brilliant. Good experiment!
Here I used a wet-dry-wet technique, choosing sky blue, lemon yellow and light rose for color. Using the pipette in the jar lid, I dropped bits of color here and there onto dry paper. With a water-filled paintbrush I was able to push the color around in swatches to blend and make a beautiful background. To complete my art I added patterns with a drawing style called ‘tangling’ and shaded with colored pencils. This was a good experiment to see how the Ecoline colors work with other media and they worked great!
Both these backgrounds were made using wet into wet. The splatter dots in the background were made using the black liquid watercolor and a fan brush. Easy to do and you do not need to water down the liquid. Use it just as is. The flower on the left was colored with the pastel Ecoline Brush Pens. The flower on the right was colored with the bright Ecoline Brush Pens. The liquids work hand-in-hand with the brush pens with seamless results.
This particular piece of art felt like a true watercolor to me. I used a wet paintbrush, wiped off most of the water, then dipped the brush into a bottle of liquid and painted each petal of my dream catcher a different color. Once dry, adding another layer of color around the perimeter of each petal added the shading I needed.
Do you have a dip pen in your stash? I am so hard on dip pens but I do love using them! The overall pattern is called narwal and everything you see was drawn using a dip pen, dipped into various bottles of Ecoline Liquid Watercolors. I love how it looks and it is a great sampler of the colors I have on hand.
There are so many ways to get that color on your page. This background was made using my Smoosh technique! So easy! I placed a couple drops each of sky blue, lemon yellow and light rose onto a craft mat, then sprayed them with water. Using a strip of bubble wrap to tap into the color, I stamped the bubbles onto my paper. To get the various color bubbles, I did this several times. Where one color touched another – they blended and made a new color. After I drew my neurotangled lines, I used a water brush, which I dipped into the bottles of liquid watercolor and painted right onto my design.
I love the product so much I got to wondering why Royal Talens had not come out with a line of Ecoline spray inks. I love spray inks! So I did the only thing I could think of. I made my own using the liquid watercolors. Actually, I made four: light rose, lemon yellow, sky blue and turquoise green. I used small spray bottles and filled them halfway with water. Then I added droppers of the liquid watercolor to the water. Three pipettes of light rose, two pipettes of sky blue, and four pipettes of lemon yellow. I added the turquoise green straight to the bottle with no water – just to see if it would work. Well . . . they all worked! This is a typical background using the sprays with the smoosh technique.
Working with various media in my daily journal is something I really enjoy. Each square on this journal page is an ink sprayed background using my four colors. Then I colored the flowers with a water brush and the liquid watercolors. Mixed media with Ecoline is fun stuff!
Did you know Ecoline Liquid Watercolors come in pastel and bright? I am more of a bright kind of girl myself, so I don’t really have any of the pastel colors. But I wanted to compare the pastels with the brights the best way I could. For the background on the left, I used the watercolor ink sprays I made in a wet into dry technique. They are the closest to the pastels that I have. For the background on the right, I used my bright liquids with the same technique. I added in some other media and tried to keep the two pieces of art as similar as possible – except one is pastel and one is bright. Just so you could get an idea of how they compare. Both are beautiful, I just prefer brights myself.
This piece of art was built one drop at a time. Literally. I knew I wanted to try out my I Spy technique with the Ecoline colors because . . . well, the colors are just that awesome! Hahahaha! Working slowly, I painted a small area of water onto the page then added one drop of color at a time, then let it sit and run and spread and dry. Then I added the next color. Once the page was filled with beautiful bright Ecoline color I started looking for shapes to outline in pen. I painted a little color here and there for accents and added details with my pen. Working small areas of wet into wet makes this really easy to do and I love the results.
Every technique I tried with the Ecoline Liquid Watercolors worked great! But I always like to try the product on a substrate other than paper. For this particular experiment I chose a blank jigsaw puzzle. I wondered how these watercolors would work on top of acrylic. Everyone says you can’t paint watercolor on top of acrylic but I have never been one to stick 100% to the rules. I covered the entire surface of my puzzle with acrylic paint by using a variety of gelli plates. Some of the shapes you see have four or five layers of acrylic built up under them. I stamped and inked other details, then drew my flowers. The florals were painted using a water brush and the liquid watercolors. So many layers of media and the Ecolines worked just great! Such a fun idea!
You have seen a wide range of techniques using the Ecoline Liquid Watercolors from Royal Talens. And each one worked super! There are many other ways you can use them also. You cannot go wrong with any of these colors. Royal Talens gave me several of these colors for the purpose of this review. Versatile, bright, beautiful and super easy to use. Are the Ecoline Liquids a product you need to add to your art supplies? Absolutely! When? Right now! The sky really is the limit with what you can do with these colors!
One side note – when you close the jar make sure there isn’t any wet color on the lip of the bottle. That wet color will dry and make the top of the bottle very hard to get off. I keep a pair of pliers at my desk to open the more stubborn bottles.
I used the Ecoline Watercolor Paper for every piece of art you see in this post. I like the size (9.4” x 12.6”) because I can make one large piece of art like the I Spy piece or I can cut the paper in half and paint two pieces of art like I did for the comparison pieces. At 140 lbs. my paper stayed flat as I worked, there was no rippling, no pilling, no bleed through, this paper is great!
Royal Talens also gave me some Ecoline Brush Pens to work with. Right now I can tell you they are a staple for my everyday art making. You can read Sandra’s review of the brush pens by clicking here! They work hand-in-hand with these Liquids and you really need to order a set! I promise you are going to love them! Whether you create with the liquid watercolors or the brush pens, I would love to see what you do with your Ecoline products!
Ecoline Liquid Watercolors are exclusively distributed in the United States by Royal Talens North America.
All of the products mentioned above were provided to me free of charge by Royal Talens North America in exchange for my honest opinion in a Doodlewash review. I did not and will not receive additional compensation for this review, though post may contain affiliate links that help support the Doodlewash Community!
Excellent review, Alice! I love how you achieve such clean and sparkling colors—and creative way of using bubble-wrap. Well done!
Thank you, Kathy, I really appreciate your words
Such gorgeous colors! Love how you used these. thank you for the information!
Thank you so much, Jean!
What a fabulous review! I already have a set of the markers but this makes me want to go out and buy some more!
I know, right? Hahaha! Actually after this review I did purchase all the colors I didn’t already have.
Charlie I see no mention of price which is what I read in all things way before I read the text. Would you like to let us know or provide a link? Thanks.
There’s a link in the third paragraph.
Thank you.
thank you for having my back, Sandra 🙂
Great review, Alice! I have been eyeballing these for a while now, and you have nudged me one step closer with your enthusiasm! I do hope you are doing well and will be up and about soon. 🤗
Thank you so much. It’s 6 weeks since my surgery and I still have quite a ways to go, but I’m getting there.
Wow, Alice! Girlfriend, what gorgeous colors! I’m with you about being the queen of color. I love color and your art work is beyond words! Just stunning and those watercolors are just as fantastic! 💜 Warm greetings from San Antonio, Texas.
Thank you so much! You made me smile!
this is a really good review. I love your combination of bright colours and patterns.Thank you for all the additional information you are providing in this review. Awesome artwork!
You’re very welcome! I hope you will give them a try. ❤️
Love those bright colors!!!
Me, too!
These are as beautiful as, you are. Superb review and I am going to grab a set and have a go. We need more bright beautiful flowers, as we head into winter.
Yes, we do, marguerite! Hahaha! Can’t have too many
Thank you for such a thorough demonstration on how you use them. I have another brand that I will try using the techniques shown here. HOpefully I’ll get the same results!
thank you, I think you will love the results you get
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