Workshop: Neocolor II. Drawing & Illustration Techniques
An 80-minute workshop for artists, illustrators, sketchbook lovers, and creative people of all ages.
Whether you love Neocolor II and want to go deeper, never quite got on with them and want to understand why, or have never heard of them at all – this workshop is a treasure trove of techniques and inspiration. The kind that expands your visual vocabulary, opens new creative possibilities, and lets you have a lot of fun in the process.
Caran d’Ache Neocolor II have a reputation for being confusing. They look like children’s crayons. They’re priced like professional materials. And they behave like neither — which is exactly where the frustration begins.
Most people who struggle with Neocolors are treating them like something else. Watercolour. Pencils. Oil pastels. They’re none of those things. They have their own logic, their own particular behaviour — and once you understand it, they become one of the most versatile, direct, and satisfying materials you can keep on your desk.
This workshop is everything I’ve learned from years of using them. The mistakes, the revelations, and the techniques I keep coming back to.
Standard Price –
£50
Special Offer 60% – £19Offer valid until 3 June 2026
Lifetime access — learn at your own pace!
What you’ll discover inside:
A focused 80-minute workshop where you’ll learn:
🌟 How Neocolor II actually behave—and why it confuses people at first
🌟 What happens when you add water, and why it’s the opposite of what you’d expect
🌟 How to build layers without losing freshness or texture
🌟 How to combine Neocolor II with coloured pencils, graphite, and other dry media
🌟 How to work with the wax layer rather than against it
🌟 Techniques that produce clean, textured artwork suitable for scanning and digital use
🌟 Small, practical exercises you can use immediately in your sketchbook or illustration work
Why join?
✔️ You’ll finally understand how Neocolor II works – and why it’s been frustrating until now
✔️ You’ll gain a set of reliable techniques you can return to again and again
✔️ You’ll learn how to use water activation to your advantage
✔️ You’ll discover how versatile these are — from quick sketchbook marks to finished illustration work
✔️ You’ll walk away with a toolkit that expands your expressive range using very few materials
This Workshop is for you if…
🐝 You’ve never heard about this material. (You are in for a treat!)
🐝 You’ve had a box of Neocolors and never quite got along with them
🐝 You want a fast, direct medium that works beautifully in sketchbooks
🐝 You enjoy experimenting with materials but prefer practical, clear techniques
🐝 You want something you can take anywhere — lightweight, immediate, no fuss
🐝 You’re curious about mixed media and want to understand how Neocolors fit in
Materials You’ll Need
✨ Caran d’Ache Neocolor II (3-5 colours will be enough. You can buy them individually in most of art shops)
✨ A couple of coloured pencils – both water soluble and water resistant
✨ Some neon pencils if you have them. This is not obligatory
✨ A pallet, or just a ceramic plate will do
✨ Graphite pencil (preferably Derwent Graphitone)
✨ Sketchbook or mixed-media paper. 160g or above
Really enjoyed Elina’s bright and encouraging manner. Very easy to listen to and view.
Two suggestions: Please state or superimpose exactly the name of the crayons you are using with each demo. If I have the same colors I like to recreate the video as closely as possible the first time through. If I don’t have the crayon, at least if I knew the name of the color I can hopefully find a similar one.
Also, as several people have suggested, I would have appreciated the main demo of George done in real time. It was little hard to follow which colors were used and when to layer them.
By the way, I ordered the Derwent Graphitone Pencils and LOVE them! Thank you so much for the suggestion. I found them on Dick Blick Art Materials in the U.S.
I am a colored pencil illustrator, and I really enjoyed this class! I learned so many new things, thank you so much!
I purchased Neocolor II crayons last year, but I was only using them dry because I dislike watercolor, and especially watercolor pencils. Because of that, I had a lot of mental limitations about how Neocolors could be used. Thanks to Elena’s class, that’s no longer the case. The demonstrations and explanations really helped me see the medium in a completely different way, and I feel much more confident experimenting with water and different techniques.
A couple of small pieces of feedback 🙂
1. Limited palette exercise
I would have enjoyed seeing a more limited palette used during the exercise, since the first lesson emphasizes the idea that you can create almost anything with only 5–10 colors
2. Video speed
Maybe it’s really personnal, but please don’t accelerate the drawing portions of the videos. I found myself having to pause repeatedly in order to keep up and follow along. I would have preferred to watch the process in real time and draw alongside you. If faster playback is needed, viewers can always use the playback speed controls to accelerate the video themselves.
Overall, this was a fantastic workshop, and I would absolutely recommend it. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm for Neocolors!
A truly engaging and inspiring workshop. There were so many insightful details about working with Neocolor II, and the whole experience felt both educational and creatively refreshing. I highly recommend it if you want to enjoy drawing, experimenting, and exploring new techniques.
I’d also especially like to mention Elina’s energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity — they create such a wonderful atmosphere and make the workshop feel even more magical.
I came across this workshop because I kept wondering: just how on earth do people use this stuff? And what for? Neocolors are cool, with vibrant colours and all, but they don’t mix well with other media, and they’re so loose it’s almost impossible to paint anything meaningful!
(They’re loose indeed. One of the things shown in the videos is how that can be turned into an advantage.)
As is often the case with such workshops, the greatest problem is: to use Neocolors as beautifully and effortlessly as Elina does, one needs a great skill in stylization. A huge experience in illustration also comes in handy 😀 I have neither, and I don’t think I’ll start using Neocolors any time soon. They look best in extremely stylized loose styles, such as Elina’s — and this is exactly the reason why I didn’t start using them in the first place. Looseness is just out of my modus operandi.
Still, I have my answers now. The workshop provides very good examples of both how and why Neocolors are used, demonstrated with great care and sincere passion.
Now, to the less pleasant aspects: with all due respect, I have to note that the first half of the workshop feels somewhat chaotic. An introduction to Neocolors, then examples of how they work — and then suddenly a sketchbook walkthrough, followed by improvised redrawing of some sketchbook pages, then the walkthrough again… Notably, the first video ends so abruptly, almost mid-sentence, that I had to check what happened. (Nothing, the video was just edited that way.)
On the bright side, the actual demonstration of Neocolor techniques is very good. The second half of the workshop is just as it should be: brief, concise, very clear and to the point. Coming from me, this is the highest praise: I’m a person who usually hates video lessons because of their low information density and lack of structure. These don’t suffer from that.
However, I have a question on behalf of everyone who is not very keen on color theory: which exact colours are those 5 in Elina’s travel set? Surely I can use whatever colours I have, but I bet that if I only have Lemon Yellow, Canary Yellow, Pale Yellow, Sahara Yellow and Chinese Green, they won’t look great together on the page.
I would have preferred if Elina had selected a specific limited palette for the workshop and stuck to it. It feels somewhat unfair when it’s first announced that it will be enough to have just 3–5 unspecified colours, and then there are 12+ very specific (“jungle”) colours used in the final exercises.
Also, I was quite surprised by the lack of use of Neocolor I. They’re not that bad at all! One can actually use them instead of non-water-soluble pencils, but unlike pencils, they tend to work perfectly on top of Neocolor II — even over thick undiluted layers.
And a side note: despite what is said in the videos, undiluted Neocolors _do_ smudge. Much less than pencils, but still. No matter what paper I use (including the exact same one as in the workshop), I cannot avoid smudging. I guess that’s just inevitable with any dry material that goes onto the surface of the paper.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this workshop. It’s exactly what I was looking for. A bit imperfect – but nothing in the world is perfect, is it? Many thanks to Elina and everyone!
course was interesting and learnt new techniques.. thank you
I absolutely loved this workshop. I’m new to using Neocolor II and really needed these tips. Plus, experimenting with these pencils was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.
This is the first time I’ve seen so many uses for the Neocolor II. I loved them, but, was using just 20% of it’s possibilities. Happy I found the course. And such a good, elaborate, fun amd colorful course. Great teacher!
Elina showed us many ways to use Neocolor II. She is a very engaging and fun teacher. I would love to see a few more practical lessons where we could draw along as it was the most beneficial part for me.
I’d had neocolours among my art materials for years but never really felt confident to use them. This short but very sweet course gave me the information and encouragement I needed to pull out my neocolours and play with them. The draw-along example is easy to follow along with and the demonstration of techniques in the course have unlocked this medium for me. Highly recommend!
The course was fun and the techniques helpful and easy to understand. A few of them I knew since I wasn’t completely new to this medium but I still learned very useful tips! I wish the coloring process in the examples hadn’t been sped up so much, I had to pause and go back a lot to be able to follow. I also wish it had been longer and with a few more full exercises. Elina was a joy to watch though!
Overall, the workshop was great. I had used Neocolor 2 before, so I was already familiar with some of the techniques covered. I joined hoping to learn something new. Of course, I did learn new techniques. I would have been happier if we had seen a few more detailed drawings and if the video had been a little longer. Thank you very much for everything.
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I have a wide range of watercolours, which I love using for my illustrations. But I’d also bought a box of 10 Neocolor and a box of 10 Neocolor II at one point, and tried out the Neocolor II in particular. I’ve finally realised just what’s possible with Neocolor II, including in combination with coloured pencils and ink. Whilst watching, I’ve already made a mental list of which pencils (e.g. Graphitone!) I still need to buy. And, more importantly, what I’m going to paint next using Neocolor II.
Thank you, Elina!