Long a favorite of  artists and designers for doing sketches and layouts, in recent years colored pencils artists have turned colored pencils into a fine art medium, using them to create fantastic works of art. Regular colored pencils are made with pigments in a mixture of waxes and oils. They are not water soluble. They can be  layered or blended using a blender pencil or solvent. Watercolor Pencils (also called Aquarelle Pencils or Water-Soluable Pencils) are made with the same pigments but the binder is water-soluable.