Best Colored Pencils | Supply List

You want to create rea

list

ic drawings with your

colored

pencil but you're not sure which brand to choose. I'll help you a little with that today and my full

colored

pencil

supply

list

. Quick disclaimer before anyone gets mad at me because of me. I don't like the same materials as you it's okay if we don't like the same I don't know why people get so upset what's important to you and what you're looking for in a colored pencil may just not be what I'm looking for looking, you should keep in mind that I am a professional artist and I need to be able to sell my artwork, so it is very important that my work is lightfast.

Now you may be thinking, but Lisa, you use Derwent Inktense and that's not all. Lightfast, your work is uniform. Brag shamelessly, yes, but with Darwin Inktense it is a very quick medium to work with, so I can do a complete drawing and painting in a day or two, whereas with colored

pencils

this can take two weeks or more. with colored

pencils

it's just not worth it for me to put that level of time into a piece if I can't sell it with inktense I can only sell the prints and I'm perfectly happy with that why does lightfast matter if you're selling your work If I sell something and it fades away in a few years, the person who spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on my work won't be happy with me and that's not fair to them, even if I was okay with being shady, that's just very, very important for me.

The next thing I look for is good color saturation. I want my pencils to be able to overlap very well. Some brands are too waxy or have too much filler. I don't. I know how to express that, but you can't get many layers with them. I want a pencil that can get many layers, great color saturation and I want it to be very blendable. I want to have my final result. it looks more like a painting than a colored pencil sketch, does that mean the sketchy look is bad? No, it's a personal preference, so again you have to decide what you're looking for in a pencil before delving too deeply into pencils.

I want to explain a little about wax versus oil. Actually, all of these pencils are a combination of wax, oil, clay, and all kinds of different ingredients, so when I talk about something oil-based, that doesn't mean it's not oil-based. They don't have all the other ingredients, those pencils just tend to have a little more oil or a little more wax, which changes their performance, so an oil-based pencil will generally have a harder lead and be more translucent. While a pencil that has a higher wax content will usually have a softer lead and be more opaque, which is better, it depends on what you're doing, whether I'm drawing a portrait or I'm trying to get a background. really out of focus where I want. very smooth blend, I like my wax base better, but when I want super fine details or if I'm doing a glazing technique, then I want my oil based pencil, something that is harder and can hold a finer point and get that really small detail.

By the way, these are in no particular order, first on my list is the Faber-Castell polychrome. These are listed as oil-based pencils and in practice I would say they have the highest oil content or at least that's how they work. I don't know the actual formula on these, but they are the most translucent and have the hardest lead, so I can get the finest point on these, seriously, look what a long, fine point I can get if you can break a polychrome. You deserve a reward because it's a little bit difficult to do, whereas something that's a pencil with a higher wax content I'm usually not going to sharpen it focused, there we go, I'm not going to sharpen it for as long because they're more prone.

To break it down, the set of polychromes that I have has 120 colors. I just had to take out some of the colors in the set that weren't lightfast. If I'm going to blend powders with a blender, these are the only pencils I use. for my base coats these blend really well with a powder blender, they also blend really well with odorless mineral spirits but when I use a powder blender these are hands down the

best

pencil for that product and I'll explain what I mean with powder blender. I'll keep you on your toes later in this video.

I must be confused. Next on my list are Derwent's lightfast pencils. You can get these pencils in a hundred colors. They are listed as an oil base, but in practice they feel like a very good blend. wax and oil I feel like I'm getting the

best

of both worlds with this pencil. You can sharpen them to a very fine point, they will be more likely to break if you add too much pressure than, say, the harder polychrome lead, but these blend very well, I can be so sloppy and sketchy and have hard lines everywhere when I'm mixing and working with these, when I check it with odorless mineral spirits, it mixes like I'm really careful and doing my job. right, they're amazing, they're very forgiving I would say, whereas with polychromes I have to pay attention to what I'm doing and work in little ovals or circles to get a really smooth blend in the way I layer the layers.

I guess the long and short of this is that I can be careless and lazy with these pencils. These pencils are pretty opaque, so if you want deeper coverage, they're great. They have the best purples of any brand when it comes to lightfast colored pencils, there is no other. Purple is just as good, its nightshades and violet are two absolutely essential elements for me. They also have a magenta which is beautiful. I'll put a list of my must-haves if you're only going to try a few, at least get these colors. I'll put a link to that and everything I'm talking about in today's video will be in the description of the video.

Next on my list is Karen Dash's Luminance. These are all lightning fast too. Did I mention that the Derwent Lightfast were all lightning fast? I don't know if I did it, but they are Karen Dash luminance and they are also lightfast. These pencils now come with 100 colors. I haven't tried the newer colors so I can't talk about that yet. I need to buy some so I may do a review on that soon but they are a wax based pencil that blends beautifully. I usually mix them with odorless mineral spirits. They work great for polishing and now the last one on my list, I consider it more of an add-on.

The pencil is not standalone just because it comes with 24 colors, which is very disappointing because I love them. These are my softest, waxiest pencils, so they feel very buttery to work with. These are Derwent drawing pencils. These are my most opaque colors. I'm going to use them more for really blurry backgrounds or portraits for skin where you want it to be really soft. They're great for that, but there are seriously only 24 colors. If you're watching this I'll sell you my leg or do the artwork in the can for free like what should we do to get more colors of these because I love Derwent drawing pencils we just need more colors you might be thinking Okay, with those pencils, what's the best sound this is going to sound like? as a cop-out, but I'm not kidding when I say this, you won't be unhappy with any of these Derwent drawings, we count it as independent, but as far as Karen Josh's luminance goes, the Faber-Castell polychromes. or the Derwent Lightfast, you won't be unhappy with any of those brands.

They are incredible. I wear them all together when I work, they blend well and blend well. I'm sure you're thinking, wow, those pencils aren't cheap, no. but you can start with a small set, if you go online you will see a lot of places on Amazon like they have cheap Chinese art products that you can get there, you can get a lot of colors for a very small amount of money compared to pencils. quality I don't recommend them I would rather you had 12 quality pencils than 100 broken pencils husband, do you want all these comics? They're worthless, nothing's worthless for this one, I'll take this one.

Now, the other thing I want to point out is that a lot of the pencils on Amazon, the ones outside of China, say they have excellent lightfastness or excellent lightfast qualities. They didn't test them. I know I contacted the companies. None of them did actual lightfast tests. just a statement they put on the label, something like brands put HD on everything and I'm like I don't think that means what you think it means it's just a word that gets used a lot but they didn't actually test if a company can't tell you what the blue wool or astm ratings are on their pencils, they didn't do any testing or they didn't do tests that were worthy of your consideration, so it's definitely something to keep in mind, don't fall for it, it's Very fraudulent the way you do it.

I'm not a fan, the other thing is just the performance of the pen. You'll learn more about how to blend and layer pencils if you're using them. a quality brand, I made a video not long ago where I only used 12 pencils, 11 of them were the polychromes from the set of 12 and then an opaque white pencil, I had no problems mixing the colors I needed and that brings me to My next point: We often receive these huge sets of pencils and that gets very overwhelming. What yellow do I choose? There are 10 of them. Why are there 10 yellow ones?

Nobody needs to do it anyway. You may be confused about which pencil, which yellow, which green, which if. You only have one green, one blue, one yellow and one red to choose from. You're going to figure out how to get the shade you want by blending and layering, and you're going to learn a lot more about how to blend, layer, and blend colors than you would if you had this huge set that gets confusing, so even if you have the Huge set, I would recommend that you use just a handful of colors to work with on each project as you learn to mix and plan color so you can save a lot of money to get started get quality pencils, just get a smaller quantity.

I'm going to talk about the pencils that didn't make the cut here at the end of the video but first let's talk about the rest of the art supplies I use paper there is a brand of paper called colored pencil don't waste your money it's terrible I hate That those things were just not good for me, my favorite role will be the bows. hot pressed watercolor paper I also really like the Canson Me Tens gray tone. There is a very inexpensive paper from Strathmore that I like, not their colored pencil paper but their regular drawing paper.

It's thin and light, but if you're just starting out, it has good teeth, it takes paper or pigment very well, so it's an option for you if you're just trying things out, it's not that thick, you have to be careful not to break it, but I really like the tooth in that role. For erasers, what I should have is the Faber Castell perfect eraser, it's almost like an ink eraser, it lifts pigments very well because it's a little rougher than, say, the Tombow mono eraser or something you might use for graphite , this will lift a lot. of that pigment so you can get more pigment in that area.

It is without a doubt the best eraser for colored pencils. The glass scene is another thing I really like. This is what I have under my hand so I don't get oils on it. My skin has oils as it turns out they are not archival so we want to keep it out of our work as much as possible so I put glassine under my hand and this protects my work. Glassine is acid-free and pH neutral, so it's something that can touch your work long term without causing any problems. I use a ph neutral adhesive tape. It's a black tape that I stick my artwork to my drawing board and then of course a drawing board itself, this stops my work from sliding around.

There are two. methods I normally use to mix one well, one is technically two methods, I'm bad at math, this one is mixing with odorless mineral spirits and then when I get to my final coats I'll start buffing a little where I'm pressing harder. the pencil, but my initial layers are done using odorless mineral spirits, I use odorless mona lisa or gamsol. I have a video that explains mixing techniques. I'll put a link to that in the video description. The next method I use for mixing is using. powder blender from Brush and Pencil.com. This will make the pencils behave a little more like soft pastel, but without all the mess of soft pastel.

Personally, I love the look of pastels, the feeling in my hands scares me. I just can't do it, I'm struggling, I know, but this is a great alternative to be able to get that great pastel look without using pastels if I'm going to mix with a powder blender, sanded paper, it's my go-to. -that's it and that's the deluxe file too brush and pencil this is the only sanded paper that is archival or acid free front and back other brands that claim they are archival or acid free forgot to mention that that's not it's not in the back the back or it's not a little murky, right?

But the fancy archive is again because I sell my work that matters, so I'm very fancy when it comes topencil sharpener, my favorites are The Coomb small metal handheld pencil sharpener, I will use the wide side for pencils like my Derwent drawing pencil which not only has a thicker lead but will give me a not as long tip so no it's so prone to breaking but I use this type or my fine point pencil sharpener, this one I usually reserve for my polychromes because it can handle a super fine point and man can this give you a treat, seriously look how sharp it is now, Don't these last forever? having to change the blades or replace the sharpener every once in a while when your pencils if you get to where you start to break them especially if it's a pencil like the derwent light fast or the polychrome which aren't really prone to breaking that easily they start to break when you sharpen them You need to replace the blade You want it to be nice and sharp The cutting tool is also an amazing tool for colored pencils, this will be a way you can scrape off the top layers exposing the bottom layers for fine detail.

This is really good if you're doing little things like little hairs, texture touch-ups, and mixing titanium white with a brush and pencil. This product changed everything for me with the way I work with colored pencils because now I can get my highlights brighter. I used to have to work backwards where I kept the paper white to show that now I can be sloppy and messy and I know I can get those bright highlights right on top. Now you might be thinking: Can't I just use a gel pen or acrylic paint? No, those are not archival, we are dealing with wax and oil based pencils, wax, oil and water, they don't mix, we don't want to use a water based product on top of those, so we can use this instead product that is made specifically for colored pencils, it is archival, it will keep long term and this is the only one that I recommend to get those brighter highlights when you are working with colored pencils when you want to make sure that it will archive and that your work will last for the pencil extenders when your pencils run out the derwent pencil extenders are my favorite these are the most comfortable ones i found to use and they come in a pack of two one fits thicker pencils really well like the caron dodge luminence and then the other one will hold your thinner cap like the derwent light fast or the polychrome pencils.

Now the two pencil brands that didn't make the cut here may be I'm wondering about Prismacolor and Holbein, so my problem with Prismacolor, not all of them are lightfast. My biggest problem with Prismacolor, even if I were okay with using their lightfast colors, is that their quality control is just horrible. They used to be great. They sold out, they started making all their products in another country and now they are just bad, so they are a wax based pencil which means they will be more brittle, that's ok, I hope so. be more prone to breaking the problem is that they don't consistently center their pencils you might get a set and have no problems so some people are confused they say my pencils have never broken you got a good set you're lucky .

I'm happy for you, but not all of us are so lucky, it's so unpredictable and my sample size of how many prismacolors I've used over the years is huge. I've been doing this for a long time. When I work with my pencils I don't have time to deal with a pencil that keeps breaking because the lead wasn't centered or the wooden casing was bad and kept breaking and I know there are solutions where Find out if a lead keeps breaking inside. You can try putting it in the microwave or oven. I have noted that I know the tricks there.

I know them. Can you give me some ice? What is the knife for? You'll see, mother, what is it? wrong with this mug that's what the knife is for why make the mug straight I don't know why I'm using a defective mug it was cheaper than the good ones here's the thing how many hoops do I have to jump through to get my art? supplies to do what they are supposed to do i don't have time for that i just need them to do it's a pencil like none of my other pencils have this problem it's just a prismacolor problem so just for me it's not even worth the trouble is that the other is holbein holbein.

I did a full review of that video it will also be in the description of that video. I shared exactly what happened with that company, but contacted them about their questionable life mass ratings. Their answers were simply not acceptable in my opinion. I am concerned and really not impressed how they treated someone who they thought was just a regular customer. Now I know of artists who were making videos and Holbein knew they were making a video and treated them very differently than they treated me. So that's, um, I don't know, that tells me something about that company and no, I just don't, no, I'm not giving them any more money.

The other problem with Holbein is even if you were to take their word for what they claim to be their lightfast ratings, they have had independent testing done on these independent tests when they tested other brands and what they claim to be their lightfast ratings. light were very similar, there were very few cases where they did not coincide with fairly close hole bites. it was all over the place and did not agree with an independent evaluator. I usually trust the brand more but theirs was the one that was everywhere and that is combined with the fact that they don't use astm or bluewool which is the industry standard.

I just have enough questions and don't trust the professional work I sell with their brand and again how they treated me when they thought I was just a customer and not someone manufacturing. a video so I personally won't spend the money and yours is one of the most expensive colored pencils so it's not worth it to me why would I spend that with so many of your pencils that don't seem to be lightfast ? own holbein or prismacolor if you don't use them don't enjoy your pencils i'm not saying you can't create stunning, incredible and beautiful work with those pencils you absolutely can.

I have used them both. I used prismacolor for years before switching. to other brands I didn't know there was a bigger world at the time, but I created work that I loved with prismacolor and I have created work that I love, one piece, I only make the one with the whole bow that doesn't I don't want you to feel that You shouldn't enjoy or be excited or happy with any art supplies you have, use what you have, love what you have, but when you get to the point where you're making substitutions, you might want to try some. of these other brands and see if they're a better fit for you, you want to check out some of my longer art lessons, like some of the clips you saw here in this video, head over to patreon.com where it's only four dollars. per month you have access to all my longest lessons.

I've been teaching there for over seven years, which means you get instant access to over 300 videos as soon as you sign up, four dollars a month, that's a lot if you want it. Check out what I have in my Patreon video library, check out my website lockcreate.com. That link is in the video description, where you can see a list of all the lessons that are available. Did you enjoy this video? I think you'll like it. one with more art information