I am not using that brand, but I use them in conjunction with my watercolor palette. I am using supracolor ones. I only buy a few colors. I am not listing their proper color names which I don’t look at that much, but I am assuming the names in your brand will be different.

Black and Various Grays and White, these are for utility, and they don’t have a color. The black and gray I hardly ever use, the white is for seascapes. I prefer these to graphite since I can erase them via lifting methods like I would watercolors. These are also good for figuring out values in my sketchbook.

Then I use the earthy colors. Generally the colors are Yellow ochre ( yellowy ), Burnt Sienna ( orangey ), Burnt Umber ( dark greenish red ). These also are generally more lightfast since earth colors are usually made made from cheap pigments which won’t fade. Sometimes I choose colors which won’t clash with my picture, so something which is going to be bright yellow, I might use yellow ochre. Other times I just like the look that using burnt umber gives.

I have a blue ( kind of an ultramarine color ) and I just don’t use it that much, but then I tend to mix my intense colors into dull earthy colors anyway, and it just does not seem to work for me.

My choices, except for the grayscale ones, were mostly paints on my first palette, I just never got viridian. This let me plan things out in pencil and have an idea of the color, but also when I use them with my watercolors, it makes them not be more obtrusive than I want them to be. Lately though I like using the three earth colors to further refine details as a finishing touch, especially on figure drawing.

I would suggest listing your current watercolor palette, and then choose pencils that match in general color, with some attention to whether they are lightfast, and perhaps mixes you like doing.

You can probably also mix brands, the Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencils are a lot higher quality, but I don’t like how soft their leads are which is why I prefer the supracolors. I’d probably use the higher end museum line if I wanted more variety of color, but stick with the supracolor for my three earthy colors.

I take along all my watercolor pencils with me in a case and don’t particularly select out a specific set. As I recall, Liz Steel has listed a limited set she uses…

Let me preface the stars (asterisks) lightfast ratings Faber Castell uses.
*** translates directly to 7 or 8 on the Blue Wool Scale. Basically, the same as ASTM 1 rating (most lightfast).
** translates to a 5 or 6 on the BWS. ASTM 2 is supposed to be 6 on the BWS, the bottom end of what is considered reasonably lightfast. The trick is, you don’t know what given pencil is a 5 or a 6. Now, if the non-watercolor version of the same FC pencil (Polychromos line) is a three star, it’s quite likely the color is downgraded in thinner wash form, probably to a six, but it’s something you either want to test for yourself, find something that is a surer thing, or just use in a sketchbook that generally speaking isn’t kept open to sunlight. Of the two star pencils listed below, all are three star in non-watercolor form except the Middle Purple Pink.

An example on alternatives: while the middle Cadmium Yellow is **, the light and dark versions of Cadmium Yellow (from FC) are both ***. Since it is for sketchbooks, I imagine Liz is more concerned about mixing properties than strict lightfastness. Anyway, her list:

Cadmium Yellow 107 **
Deep Scarlet Red 219 **
Middle Purple Pink 125 **
Dark Indigo 157 ***
Ultramarine 120 **
Permanent Green Olive 167 ***
Brown Ochre 182 **
Burnt Sienna 283 ***
Walnut Brown 177 ***
Warm Gray IV 273 ***
Cobalt Green 156 ***

I was at first thinking of buying Albrech Durer too but I ended up ordering Museum. They arrived this week and I feel that I made the right decision. They are very nice to use. But look at the star rating on them. There actually is one colour that only has two stars out of five. Some have three.
In the Albrecht Durer line it is those with *** that have the highest lightfastness. You only wrote *. 6 and above are considered lightfast on the BW scale.

I got a bit nuts and ordered the Standard set of 12, the Landscape set of 20 and 21 singles. If the full set of 76 had been available in a cardbord box and not only in an expensive wooden box I would probably have bought it… Good it was not

I have a set of the Faber Castel Art Grip Aquarelle… are they considered Student Grade? The Faber Castel website doesn’t offer any specs.

I have tried to find lightfastness information without any luck. FC has this information on their chart for Albrecht Durer but not for Art Grip.

I read a few years ago that FC had blue boxes for their student quality sets and green for their artist quality sets. Could this be true? And red for children.