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Product review - Color Pencils

Colored Pencils - not just for Children any more...

Colored Pencils have grown up. Manufactorers have looked at the needs of the serious artists and have developed pencils to suit. The pigment quality in certain brands of pencils are excellent - as good in quality and quantity as the leading oil paints. Different manufacturers use different binding mediums to hold the pigment together, some of which are more archival then others, some of which are smoother, some blend better.

I'm going to tell you about the ones that I use on a day to day basis.

Prismacolor

Prismacolor started the revolution in blendable colored pencils. They have a "colorless blender" that you can use to blend your colours together, giving a very smooth surface that shows no lines (given practice of course - rough, hasty lines will always show)

"Premier" is their professional quality, "Verithin" is more student grade. Prisma do tend to fade and aren't very archival - however they have developed a new type of pencil they call "Lightfast" which combats this problem. I haven't tried the Lightfast yet.

Faber Castell

Faber Castell is the brand I'm particularly fond of. Their leads break less often then the Prismas (which have a tendency to crumble) and you can work with a much sharper, finer point. The wood sharpens well too, coming off cleanly. The colors are more lightfast then the average Prismacolor and they have a better archival standard as well. They blend nicely - but I will talk more about that down in the "techniques" section.

Derwent

I have to admit that I haven't used Derwent colored pencils. I was told that they had a higher incidence of rough patches and I was happy with the prisma and Faber Castell so I never bought any. If anyone would like to write and let me know their experiences I'd love to ad them to this review.

Water Soluble Pencils

Almost all brands of colored pencil now come in a "water soluble" version as well. These pencils can be used on wet or dry paper and will give different results when you add water. Depending on how much water you add, or how much drawing you do, you could class your finished work as either a colored pencil work or a watercolor.

So where to start?

With colored pencils as with many art supplies you get what you pay for. You can buy a set of 12 from the supermarket for $1 - but it would not be worth it. They would not blend, they would streak, you would get hard lumps that left no color, and they would break easily. You would do much better buying just a few colors of a good brand and adding to your colors as you have the money. Cheap color pencils leave you wondering what you are doing wrong, why you can't get the lovely effects you see other people getting, when it probably isn't you - this time it really is the tools.

Papers

The same goes for the paper you use. You are going to have to get several different sorts of paper and experiement. Some artists swear by Bristol (a very smooth paper that does give a lovely smooth finish), others by Stonehenge (a softer, rougher paper - some like it, personally I don't). I use a very rough pastel paper called ColorFix which eats color pencils for breakfast it goes through them so fast. Another good paper to try is MiTints - it has a smooth side and a toothy side so you can try both and see what you like better. Some of these papers come in different colors - one of the great things about color pencils is that you don't have to start with white paper - you can start with black paper and work in lighter colors instead, like the black cat on the left.

A quick word about technique

I'm not going to attempt to tell you all about drawing with color pencil here. Books have been written about the subject (your local library is sure to have several - or buying on eBay is always a good choice!) But I would like to say a few things about how color pencil is special.

I draw a lot of animals, especially cats. If you look into one of my cats eyes you will notice it is made up of many different colours. I might use 7 different colours to make the "green" of a cat's eye. By putting one color over the other they will naturally blend in together and then if you go over them again with a third color you will get a different shade again. Just try it and you will see what I mean.

Where to buy color pencils

If you want to buy some Prismacolor pencils at a very good price have a look for them on eBay. Don't buy a set, but there are people there who sell "seconds". The wood might not have been correctly stamped with the name or something like that, but there is nothing wrong with the color inside the wood. So far I've only seen Prismacolors sold this way, but it's a huge saving.

The End?

I hope that this little chat about color pencil will make you want to go out and try them for yourself - which would be just the begining, not the end!

If you have any questions or comments about this review, please email me