How to Buy and Store Colored Pencils

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A budget for how much you're willing to spend on colored pencils
A computer with Internet access or
A vehicle to get out shopping in multiple stores

Step 1

You can sometimes find a set of 12 colored pencils on sale for a dollar -- why pass that up in favor of fancier pencils that come in a nice tin and cost over a dollar each?

The best answer to this question is to pick up a set of cheap children's colored pencils, the cheapest you can find, and try to draw with them. They have low pigment concentration, they almost always have very hard leads, and sometimes the leads are crooked which makes them break off in the sharpener. They may be hard to sharpen. They are very difficult to get smooth coloring or blending with. And if you tape a drawing done with cheap children's colored pencils into a sunny window, a month or two later you'll find out how much they fade with light exposure.

Also, the flimsy cardboard box may lose its flap or tabs, or wear out completely with much use. Bargain colored pencils aren't always that great a bargain. But a few reasonably priced brands are very good bargains, and using good sharpeners and elastic-band pencil cases or tins with foam inserts to store them can extend the life and usefulness of your good colored pencils. A pencil extender will help you get the most use out of artist grade colored pencils, down to the last inch.
Step 2

Search online for product research. I began by reading all the descriptions for every Artist Grade brand of colored pencils on http://www.dickblick.com because I often window shop there. Blick rates art supplies as Artist Grade (best), Student Grade (good) and Scholastic (Children's, not expected to be permanent, lightfast or art quality). These listings are good for a first sorting. I spotted two bargain brands of Artist Grade colored pencils immediately: Prismacolor Verithin and Koh-I-Noor Progresso Woodless Colored Pencils.

Woodless colored pencils are a great bargain because they don't wear down as quickly. They are heavy in the hand, and sometimes shorter than other colored pencils, but you can use every last millimeter of the pencil. They are also great for filling in large areas by turning the point on its side or letting the point wear down at an angle. Of all the artist brands, Koh-I-Noor Progresso woodless colored pencils were the best bargain for a soft, pigment-rich, lightfast colored pencil at an affordable price. Unfortunately these are only available in a set of 24 colors, but if you are just starting out or have a low budget, they may be your best choice.
Step 3

Check the manufacturer's websites for more information about their colored pencils and other products. Many manufacturer websites like Derwent and Prismacolor also have free tutorials or even video lessons in using their products. You can't usually order directly from the manufacturer, but sometimes you can find listings for stores that carry their pencils in your area.
Step 4

By using my calculator and dividing the cost of small and large sets by the number of pencils in the set, I discovered that the price of colored pencils is usually quite lower in sets, especially large sets. This holds true even in stores, take a calculator with you and look at the store price versus the store price for replacement pencils from open stock. Sometimes to maintain a large set, I purchase a smaller set that has all the colors I wore down fastest in it, since large sets contain many colors that might only be used in small areas.

Why does an artist need so many colors? Because in dry mediums like colored pencil, it's harder to mix colors than it is to mix paint from two sets of primaries, white and neutral dark. The more different shades of green you have, the easier it is to mix greens. I know this sounds strange, but it's true -- the larger a set I use, the more mixing I do to create unusual tones between colors like deep maroon and lavender instead of having to mix lavender with purple and white first and maroon with red and black, if those exact pigments mix right anyway.

Also, if you do large colored pencil paintings, you will find that based on subject, some color groups wear down very fast. If you only have one or two browns, peach and white, doing one or two portraits may wear them down to nubs. If you have a dozen shades of brown and reddish brown, two or three shades of peach and pink, a white and a cream, you can do many more portraits and get much better shading on faces without wearing out one pencil that quickly.

You will still discover that certain colors wear out very fast, but only after using them for a while. Two of mine are Prismacolor Indigo and Tuscan Red. When you buy replacements several times in a row for one specific color, it's a good idea to buy a box of a dozen in that color and store your spares. This will also let you do very large paintings where you might use up more than one pencil on the painting.
Step 5

Colored pencil or pastel "paintings" cover all of the background thoroughly, and have visible "painterly strokes" or smooth realism. They resemble paintings, either impressionist or classical. Colored pencil drawings show some of the paper or ground, shade with tonal layers and may look more sketchy. This distinction is common in art magazines and articles. Knowing which you are more likely to do can affect how you buy colored pencils and whether to get Progressos or Prismacolor Art Stix to cover large areas.

Prismacolor Art Stix are square pastel-shaped sticks made of Prismacolor core material in exactly the same colors as Prismacolor Pencils. You can turn them on their sides to cover large areas, or wear them down to a chisel point and use a broad heavy stroke. When you do colored pencil paintings, having some woodless pencils or Art Stix in colors you often do large areas in can save a lot of money.
Step 6

Online art supply companies and mail order catalogs are the cheapest way to buy any art supplies, unless you find them in the Clearance bin at a physical art store. The seller's overhead is much less at an online or mail order company, and the savings get passed on to you. Sign up for free catalogs and watch for sales on large sets of colored pencils. The price can drop dramatically first from getting a large set, then from ordering it instead of stopping at a store, then from the sale itself cumulatively. The best bargain I ever got was a set of 120 Prismacolors for $37.50 on a "loss leader" flyer from United Art and Education Supply, a mail order company that I used in the 1990s.

Anchor your colored pencils collection with a large set of 72 or 120 colors if you can. This is much more affordable when looking at catalog and online sales. More recently, in 2005, I found a 120 color set of Derwent Artist pencils in a beautiful wood box set for $99 -- cheaper than the sets of 120 that come in tins. Derwent Artist have thicker cores than Derwent Studio and usually cost more, but they come in a larger range -- if you get the wood box set.

72 color sets usually run about $50 more or less, a little more or a little less. 120 color sets usually cost under $100 except for some expensive brands. Caran d'Ache "Pablo" colored pencils are $195 at Blick and probably much more offline for the 120 color set, so it'll be a long time before I get around to trying those. At the other end, Blick Artist Studio pencils are sometimes on sale as low as $42 for the 72 color full range set and they are excellent colored pencils.
Step 7

How to decide which brand to get your anchor set? Price is a consideration, but so is texture. Go to a physical art store and look at the open stock colored pencils, especially if they let you test them on tester scraps of paper. See how they feel. Artist grade colored pencils should be soft and cover strongly when you press hard. Some have different textures. Derwent Studio or Artist feel more like using graphite pencils and are great for tonal shading because of their clay binder. Prismacolor and Derwent Coloursoft are the very softest wax-based colored pencils. Lyra Rembrandt are oil-based, there's oil as well as wax in the binder, and they have a slippery oil feeling that's a lot like painting. Lyra Rembrandts are also a bit more translucent.

Test the pencils in the store before deciding which artist brand you want your big set in. Prismacolor Verithin comes in a range of 36 colors and is harder than Prismacolor Premier. It can sharpen to a fine point for details. Combining Verithins with a softer bigger set of colored pencils can let you use different effects within the same painting or drawing.
Step 8

Can you mix brands like that? Oh yes. Even if colored pencils have a different proprietary binder, they all work well together in the same drawing or painting. The exact colors are proprietary too -- an emerald green in one set may be much lighter and yellower than emerald green in another. So ignore color names in favor of using the colors you want. Fill out around your big set with open stock colored pencils in the color groups you use most -- earth tones for portrait artists, greens and blues for landscape artists, all the bright spectrum colors for floral artists.
Step 9

Good colored pencils, especially the soft ones like Prismacolor Premier, are subject to internal breakage if they bang around. That means the lead broke inside the wood, and when you sharpen it, the point falls off in the sharpener. Sometimes that happens repeatedly till your brand new pencil is only two inches long by the time it has a solid point.

I have found that ordering colored pencils online tends to reduce internal breakage too, even in open stock. They aren't handled as often. In stores, displays tip over and pencils drop to roll around and bang into each other often. They just get picked up and replaced. If you buy an open stock colored pencil at a store, sharpen it immediately at home. Sometimes stores will replace the pencil if you got a dud with a lot of internal breakage.
Step 10

Sturdy leather or nylon pencil cases with elastic bands to hold the pencils tight against their padding are the best way to store colored pencils, other than tins with foam padding to hold the pencils in their styrene trays. The Global Classic leather pencil case comes in black or brown and is the nicest of them, also the most expensive. If you like leather, get that one. They come in various sizes from 24 to 120, and are also great for storing open stock pencils from many different brands, or extras in colors you use often.

Tran makes a similar product about $10 cheaper, the Tran Deluxe case which also has zippered leaves and elastic bands. The price leader is a nylon easel case from Art Supply Warehouse, which has the advantage that it folds out flat showing both sides at once. I keep my 72 Blick colored pencils in an ASW easel case and my Cretacolor Aqua Monolith woodless watercolor pencils in a leather Global Classic case, both are shown in the illustration along with the good tin that came with my Faber-Castell Polychromos 120 color set.

With a two or three tray tin, check to see that there are tabs or loops to lift the trays out of the tin. If the set didn't come with lifting loops, make some with tape so that you can easily pick up the top trays to get at the bottom colors.
Step 11

Two other items that can extend the life of your good colored pencils are the Prismacolor Colored Pencil Sharpener for normal width ones, or the General's Little Red All-Art sharpener for extra wide ones like Derwent Artist colored pencils. Replace your pencil sharpener often. You can replace the blades on good sharpeners by unscrewing the old blade and throwing it out, then break a cheap children's pencil sharpener to take out a new blade and screw it into the holder.

There is something in the engineering of the Prismacolor Colored Pencil Sharpener that makes it extra gentle to Prismacolor Premier and other soft colored pencils. It's got to be the angle or the way the holder keeps the pencil lined up straight easier, but I have found that causes a lot less breakage than other sharpeners. A sharp blade is your best defense against points breaking off though.
Step 12

Koh-I-Noor and Cretacolor both make slip-ring pencil extenders. These are handles several inches long with a metal cuff that slides around the end of the pencil stub and a ring that pushes up to hold the cuff firmly onto it. Buy at least one of these. You can use a Prismacolor down to the point it's got only a quarter inch of barrel with one, because these extenders hold it firmly enough that you can sharpen the stub.
Step 13

Also purchase one or several Colorless Blenders in the brand of your good artist pencils or a similar one. Lyra Splender Blender is good for oil based colored pencils like Lyra or Walnut Hollow. Prismacolor Colorless Blender works fine with all other brands. Derwent recently produced their own in two hardnesses, a Burnisher the hardness of their Studio/Artist pencils and a Blender as soft as their Coloursoft pencils. I'm still waiting to see those available online at my art suppliers.
Step 14

You can also save wear on your good artist pencils by underpainting your drawing on watercolor paper. A loose wash in a related color will shine through the translucent pencil and eliminate the little white flecks that are so hard to get rid of when you blend and burnish heavily.
Step 15

To sum it up: research online, then test the actual products in physical art stores. Then order your good colored pencils online or by mail order catalog unless the set you want is under $20 and you're not ordering anything else. Take shipping costs into account when planning where to buy colored pencils. It's better to save up and make a big order all at once than to buy a small set and pay high shipping. Watch for sales and bargains.

If you see weird artist pencils that you've never heard of on sale in physical art stores, go ahead and try them if they're cheap. I discovered Derwent Drawing Pencils in earth tones when an art store closed one of its locations and sold out these $2 pencils at a quarter each -- and they became my favorites for wildlife drawing. When it's cheap, take a chance on it. You might discover something great.

When it's pricy, do your research, use your calculator and also plan for good storage and maintenance -- even the Global Classic leather pencil case paid for itself in the number of Prismacolor Premiers that I didn't have to replace because they were still good once I started using it for my big set.
Step 16

For pure versatility, if you only get one large set of colored pencils, consider the Cretacolor Aqua Monolith woodless watercolor pencils set of 72. Being woodless, these pencils will last a lot longer than any wood cased pencils, even if they are a bit more expensive per pencil. They are also cost effective in another way, because if you save pill bottles and other little jars, every time you sharpen a woodless watercolor pencil, your shavings can become watercolor just by adding water.

Derwent Aquatone woodless watercolor pencils are larger and longer, also a relatively expensive set per pencil, but they only come in a set of 24. So if you don't need a large set, consider Derwent Aquatone for a 24 color set as your core set, since it too can be used to the last shavings.
Step 17

Finally, check eBay for bargains! Several sellers often post large sets of Prismacolor Premier colored pencils in tins, 72, 120 or 132 color sets with a very low opening bid -- and a dramatically low "Buy It Now" price. Their strategy is to get a good price at auction, but you can order the set at "Buy it Now" price for almost half of what even online companies charge for them.

Also check eBay for large lots of random artist grade colored pencils. You can find some great pencils in the grab bags, though you may be taking chances with internal breakage. Discontinued good brands like Design Spectracolor are wonderful pencils that sometimes turn up in mixed-lot grab bags. If you get multiple small sets in a grab bag or multiples of the same colors, then at least you're stocked up for doing the subjects that need those colors. Be sure to get an easel case or zipper case with elastic bands to hold odd lot pencils though, they may not have good packaging. Give any scholastic pencils in the grab bag to small children who'll have fun with them.

Comments

thaodo said

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on 9/13/2009 Thank you. It matches with what I've been trying to do but not sure if I've done right. This is really helpful :D. Cheers!

robertsloan2 said

on 3/8/2009 Thank you! I always appreciate it when someone comments. Enjoy! There are many other articles on colored pencils and drawing in my lineup.