Yes, I know some of you will advise not to use an electric sharpener because they often eat pencils. Thank you, but I’d wear my hands out hand sharpening with as much as I color. I’ve chosen a controlled electric machine with an auto stop feature. It’s not the sharpener, it’s the pencil. Holbein Color Range: So honestly, I’ve never really understood why pencil people differentiate wax from oil because wax is made from oil. I use two different pencil sharpeners on location. The Derwent Pastel & Charcoal Sharpener and the M + R Sharpener as they manage a wide variety of media. For both sharpeners, they worked well. I like a long point so the M + R Sharpener works best for this. The Derwent Pastel Sharpener works best for the pastel pencils I take with me but does a pretty decent job too, although produces a shorter lead point. In the studio I have a Jakar Electric Sharpener for speed and that works really well on the Holbein Artists’ Coloured Pencils producing a clean and crisp long point in seconds.

Holbein bodies are fully coated with a gloss lacquer giving them an almost a silky feel. It’s very nice and not as slippery as I expected. Holbein offers about 18 browns and beiges which run from warm red browns to cool chocolate umbers. A nice selection. And there’s a problem with Derwent Lightfast and Caran d’Ache Luminance: Neither set is a full range of colors. I put both sets together in the same case and STILL end up supplementing them with several Prismacolors!

Colour Pay Off

Holbein have quite an extensive range in this collection which is always beneficial to the colored pencil artist. The largest set available is 150, however, there are also three sets of 12, each set offering a different color palette. Next is the 24 set, 36 set, 50 set, 100 set and of course the 150 set. With the 100 set, there are two versions available, the original cardboard and then a wooden gift box set, this is also the case for the largest of the sets, the 150. Holbein Performance This set contains the following colours: Pink, Salmon Pink, Cream, Naples Yellow, Lettuce Green, Cobalt Green, Ice Green, Sky Blue, Lavender Blue, Rose Pink, Wisteria, Mauve.

Anyway, it sounds like Holbein was forced to reformulate one or more pencil cores before they could export to the United States… These pencils were delivered in a very timely manner. They are wonderful pencils. Buttery vibrant colors was so excited to draw my next drawing with them. Just a joy to work with The Holbein Pencils blend well with each other, and you can achieve different tones and colours by layering. The buttery lead allows them to mix quite well on the paper even without the blender. They go over other materials well, Gouache (when dry), Viarco ArtGraf Drawing Putty and watercolour brush pens as part of a mixed media approach.Staedtler Ergosoft are wax-based pencils with a distinctive plastic coating on the core made by Staedtler in Germany. The triangular pencils come in sets of 12, 24 or 36 with a distinctive plastic carrying case that can transform into a stand-up easel. The Arteza Experts were the only set tested that had a noticeable smell. It smelled like wood with a slight chemical undertone. It wasn’t bothersome, but was noticeable. The color selection is vast as the sets are quite large so most people should find the colors that they need. They are very expensive, however, so they may be out of some people’s colored pencil budgets. They come with a round barrel, have a 3.8 mm core, and are available in sets of 100 and 150. Visual Appeal – 4/5

In addition, there are plans to sell iPad and MacBook case handmade from material representative of the Nishijin-ori used to make Japanese kimonos.The sets are quite large so you will have a lot of colors to choose from. This is particularly true in brighter colors such as yellows and purples. There is also an abundant supply of specialty colors such as Easter greens and pinks. While we don’t find a need for many of these colors in a typical art piece, they may be perfect for you. Because so many Holbeins are opaque, you do need to worry about creating accidental clouding or masking while layering over existing layers of color. This is a set of 100 Holbein Artists’ Coloured Pencils which come contained in a durable cardboard box with lift-out trays. A super-sharp tip will break under pressure, but overall I found that these pencils kept a good point and would provide a lot of coverage before needing to be sharpened. There were no issues with lead breakage during sharpening. In comparing to the similar Caran D’Ache Luminance, (which developed lots of crumbs under heavy pressure,)the Lightfast had a cleaner lay down. But it still was not as smooth as a soft wax-based pencil such as the Derwent Coloursoft or Prismacolor Premier. So while Holbein twiddled their thumbs and ignored the US market, I kept quiet about my secret love.

Holbein makes 6 warm and 6 cool grays. All are helpfully marked as Gray 1-6 with 1 being the lightest and 6 the darkest. It’s wonderfully logical.

Holbein tend to shed core debris as you use them. Use glassine paper below your hand and dust the paper frequently to keep the margins clean. Another consideration with Prismacolors (and all wax-based pencils) is that they are not as good at layering and mixing colors as the harder and more matte oil-based pencils. And these colors will definitely get shiny and waxy with a heavy buildup. It is the colored pencil that the lead kneaded with pigment, wax, fats and oils, etc. is dried and put in the thin central canal of an axial pencil frame of wood. Holbein pigment tends to sit high on the surface of the paper and it doesn’t seem to settle and sink into the tooth the way Prismacolor, Lightfast, and Luminance do. Because of this, it’s essential that you seal your Holbein work with good quality fixative when you’re finished.