Art Supply Addicts Anonymous for 2012

[Dragoon]

Hi Candace!
Yes, I have the Prismacolor charcoal pencils (I got one of those mixed tins of pencils sets), but I haven't used them...I rarely use charcoal...I think it might be my tendency to accidentally mar my picture with the heel of my hand. Its so easy to ruin what you just worked on, lol!

I believe the difference in charcoal darkness is the plant they burned to get it, and also the hardness of the stick. Vine is gray, willow is black.
I have a little box of medium vine sticks, and a brass holder to use them, and they are heavenly to use! I've never had such fun drawing as with those velvety sticks!
Until I lay my wrist on it and smear it, oh well.
You should get some! and a big can of fixative!

I also really like the Derwent Tinted Charcoal set. Its the cleverest idea! Though the pencils are not buttery, understandably. They had to make the pencils able to sharpen, hold a point, and contain the muted colors. The colors are hard to see, unless you draw and then smudge. The smudged areas show the tints. I recommend them if you like charcoal!
Cheers,
D.

[CandAlArt]

Hi Dragoon! I totally agree on the charcoal- velvety vine, and I like the clean-ish pencils... but I have to be in a "careful mood" for smudging reasons like you, and for not blowing the residue all over, but tapping it gently into the trash can. My Prismacolor are stick form and quite soft; again, lots of powder to deal with & hands to be washed.

I LOVE the Derwent Tinted Charcoal too! I have the set of 24. Sometimes I enjoy doing a sketch with just one color, even faces with the green or anything with a brownish, just for the interesting look.

When I go to my portrait group on Wednesday mornings my biggest dither is selecting the medium for the day!! So many pencils & crayons, so little time!

[gakinme]

Jim, btw, I took a look at my Derwent drawing collection again and the sticks has red sepia and sanguine format.

Candace, actually, I really meant soot rather than ash. Like how they make Chinese sumi ink sticks, it's soot and gum arabic. And that darkness reminds me so much of those ink sticks.

I too once had some Derwent Charcoal pencils. The colors are really very muted. And of all Derwent products, the lightfastness of that product is the poorest. But I guess keeping it in a sketchbook is perfectly fine. It's cleaner than using charcoal sticks but the smudging thereafter!! Fixative!!!!

[Dragoon]

Originally Posted by gakinme

And of all Derwent products, the lightfastness of that product is the poorest.

I didn't know! aww, phooey...

Thanks, Sandra.
D.

[CandAlArt]

Sandra, as to lightfastness, it seems I hear the same colors mentioned in a variety of art supplies when they are not lightfast-- the reds, pinks, purples and similar colors. Am I right or imagining things? (and all the neon/ flourescent stuff)

[JTMB]

Hi folks,

For anyone in the Puget Sound area (Tina...) Bellevue Art and Frame is having a 50% off sale on Stillman and Birn sketchbooks this weekend. They were marking them down when I went in to pick up a can of Gamsol earlier today so of course I picked up four more even though I have several that haven't been started yet. They have quite a good selection of sizes and paper types.

[gakinme]

Candace, last week, I was being fastidious about the 24 pc set of Inktense and Watercolor pencils from Derwent and took out all the low lightfast colors. I couldn't draw a person flesh color with mostly greens and earth and gray colors, sad to say. And you got those colors right.

Neon is downright bad.

I have an Erengi oil pastel set and it has a bunch of neon colors and it didn't even register in a scan. I had red haloed lights and it came out just with yellow dots. And even on the stick itself, light fastness according to this Chinese producer is 1 star for most fluorescent and neons out of 3 stars.

It's no point using neon and fluorescent colors really.

So I put the two sets away and just carry my Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils. I don't want to have to think about light fastness issues anymore but be happy and free with whatever I pick up so the top notch set is better for now especially for colored pencil art since it takes longer to finish.

[CandAlArt]

Originally Posted by gakinme

Neon is downright bad. ... So I put the two sets away and just carry my Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils. I don't want to have to think about light fastness issues anymore but be happy and free with whatever I pick up so the top notch set is better for now especially for colored pencil art since it takes longer to finish.

Excellent points and good to know you are confident of the FC A.D. pencils. I tried the neons in a set of soft pastels a couple years back, to guess what purpose they would even have, maybe garage sale signs for 1 day LOL. I used them for a cloud edge to catch that intense color around sunset. It worked but I knew they would fade right away... So what's the point of manufacturing them? Beats me.

[blissofsilver]

Originally Posted by CandAlArt

Excellent points and good to know you are confident of the FC A.D. pencils. I tried the neons in a set of soft pastels a couple years back, to guess what purpose they would even have, maybe garage sale signs for 1 day LOL. I used them for a cloud edge to catch that intense color around sunset. It worked but I knew they would fade right away... So what's the point of manufacturing them? Beats me.

I don't mind the light fastness in art products. I usually scan or photograph it so I have a copy of the piece.

I believe it's beautiful to let art fade naturally just as nature intended it.

[JPQ]

Originally Posted by RebeccaJFleming

I wonder how they can justify upping the price on the Neocolor 2s so much for so (relatively) few extra colours. Hmm I might wait and see if they come down on special, otherwise I'll get the 84 set and just get the others bit by bit. I might swap out black for a grey (convenience colour I know but I use it a lot), though I'll probably keep the white, since I tend to like using it to make pale blues, pinks and purples.

Ugh I think I'm experiencing an art supply addict's worst nightmare... I took all of my art goodies out of my drawers to organise and catalogue them, and now I can't for the life of me get them all to fit back in again > haha Hopefully some of my unwanted Derwent tins will sell, giving me more space (and more money to buy more art supplies, of course).

Also, I'm getting all antsy waiting for the order I placed with a local art supplier... it will probably be here in the next day or two but I want them now D: There is nothing worse than having to wait for new art supplies.

At least 126 colour neocolor ii set what i know have few tools use with them. and they have more pricey pigments like Magnese violet,Cobalt Blue,Cobat Green etc what i readed.

[JPQ]

Originally Posted by RebeccaJFleming

I definitely will be looking at lightfastness ratings from now on before buying art supplies, and if a large number of a set is fugitive, I'll avoid it. I've always loved Derwent's pencils but I doubt I'll be buying many more of their products since so many have lightfastness issues. I also wish they'd make more of an effort to include lightfastness ratings on the pencils, or at least on the packaging; not providing this information seems almost deceptive, IMO.

On a side note, my Polychromos pencils arrived yesterday

Looking at the little pamphlet inside, I found it strange that the lightfastness of colours varies between the Polychromos pencils and the Albrecht Durer watercolour ones (and the PITT range of products). I had always thought a pigment would more or less behave the same in whatever form it was in, though I guess different processing methods may compromise them or something. I was very happy to note that of the 120 colours in this set, only two are not lightfast (I think it's about 10 in the Albrecht Durer set).

Binders an effect lightfastness some pigments dont like acids,some dont like
alkalis, and sometimes colour recipe is different at least some Cran D'ache products have different repice depending what media we talk... and watersolubles often have less pigment which also changes things.
ps. i going get last 42 NeoColor II soon i can which means not 2012 or 2013 i think.

[RebeccaJFleming]

Originally Posted by JPQ

At least 126 colour neocolor ii set what i know have few tools use with them. and they have more pricey pigments like Magnese violet,Cobalt Blue,Cobat Green etc what i readed.

That's right, I think they come with a little tin that includes two sponges on sticks, a greylead (2B I think) pencil and sharpener and a metal scraper for sgraffito effects. I am soo tempted to get the big set... I will one day, I know it's a rip off but I like having nice complete sets of things

I went for a trip to my local art shop today and most of what I got wasn't too exciting; just sketching pencils and watercolour painting pads. But I did see some Mungyo Gallery Watercolour Crayons, and since I am very happy with their oil pastels and have heard good things about their soft pastels, I decided to buy a set. It was 12 colours and a brush:

The brush was pretty terrible quality, but that probably won't surprise anyone. I started playing around with these crayons using one of my good paint brushes. Here are the results, along with a colour chart:

Overall I was pretty disappointed with these crayons. I wasn't expecting them to be as good as my Caran d'Ache Neocolor 2s, but I honestly thought they'd be a lot better than they were. For starters, I wasn't too thrilled with the colour selection; they should have included a proper purple or violet instead of that horrid pink 'Crimson', and I also don't like not having a yellow ochre or some sort of earthy gold equivalent. The brown included wasn't to my taste either; though it was possible to achieve a dark burnt umber-esque brown by mixing it with black, on its own it was just too reddish. Having a salmon pink for flesh tones is nice, but for me, at least, it doesn't make up for the lack of other essential colours.

These crayons are very dry and scratchy. Maybe I've been spoilt by the Derwent Artbar and the Neocolor 2s, but the Gallery crayons didn't feel any better than children's grade crayons. Layering was difficult, for once you started trying to get thick layers, previous layers would lift and flake. Blending two colours by colouring as gradients works alright; not as smooth as Neocolor 2, but acceptable. They take slightly more scrubbing to dissolve with water and I found that sometimes even then they still left the original line marks behind. These cannot be blended with the finger though; I tried doing a crosshatch and then smudging them and the colours would not budge, even after I'd heated both my finger and the page.

Pigment load/concentration was okay, but nothing special. I coloured two equal sized dots with a Gallery crayon and a Neocolor 2 and then mixed them into washes, and got a far stronger concentration from the Neocolor dot. No matter how thick I laid down the Gallery, I could not get a truly, thick, opaque wash. Also, when I took paint directly from the crayon with a wet brush, it took five or six times as many strokes from the Gallery to get the same concentration of the Neocolor 2; they felt very watered down.

Overall, this is something I'd buy for a child, though I don't think they're worth the $20 AUD price tag by a long shot. I wouldn't even recommend using these for sketchbook stuff. I'm actually annoyed, angry and upset that I wasted the money on them.

[gakinme]

Rebecca, thank you for such a detailed and thorough description and comparison of these Mungyo watercolor crayons. Potential buyers have to read your reviews first. Thank you!!!!!

You make me laugh. How do you heat up your finger? Hair dryer? LOL.

Indeed, a violet would have been nice too.

[RebeccaJFleming]

Originally Posted by gakinme

Rebecca, thank you for such a detailed and thorough description and comparison of these Mungyo watercolor crayons. Potential buyers have to read your reviews first. Thank you!!!!!

You make me laugh. How do you heat up your finger? Hair dryer? LOL.

Indeed, a violet would have been nice too.

LOL I probably didn't word it too well. Basically I just breathed hot air on my finger, but when I was doing the test I was sitting right in front of the heater, which was cranked up as high as possible (it's the middle of winter here and the morning air is usually cold enough to freeze the knackers off a polar bear).

*sigh* I REALLY wanted to like these crayons, even though deep down I knew they wouldn't measure up to my Neocolors. Oh well. When I bought these, I also got three art books (one on pastel drawing, two on watercolour painting) which were reduced from $20 to $12 and so far I am very impressed with all three. Also got a few other bits and pieces (watercolour pads, small water bottles, a palette knife) which were less exciting but needed.

And it wouldn't be an ASAA post without admitting I've ordered a few more goodies online Including:

• A cheap 10 colour set of Cretacolor AquaStics off eBay so I can compare those to the Neocolors, and it will give me an extra set to take to uni.
• Schmincke Horadam 12 colour half pan set, plus some Daniel Smith Primatek Paints that I really wanted after trying the Dot set (plus even with postage, I save a metric buttload of money compared to Australian prices) and another water brush (can't have too many of those), as well as two of those little Jack Richeson keyring palettes. They are just so cute I figured I might as well get two since they're so cheap, I know I'll find uses for them.
• Haven't actually ordered this yet, just have my online cart loaded, but I've picked a few Holbein watercolour tubes I want to try, as well as a Holbein plastic palette (I desperately need a proper big one instead of the piddly little kids ones I've got, I'm sick of having to stop painting to wash out a well so I can mix another colour).

I'm also selling a few old and unwanted pencil sets on eBay, so hopefully they'll make up for the money I'm spending on new things

[gakinme]

Oh, you did manage to get the Creatcolor Aquastics. Good. I'll be interested to hear how you like them compared to Neocolor II.

Btw, I want to share this post. I used colored pencils on a little canvas yesterday compared to Holbein oil pastels and of all the sets, I reached for Derwent Drawing Collection. It just so happens that I have the right colors but also because I'm going to hang these little canvases up and I don't want to have to worry about lightfastness.

I'm very tempted to buy the set of Talens Royal Van Gogh colored pencils from the UK which is all lightfast - all 72 pcs of it, but then, I already have Luminance and Faber Castell and Lyra. Perhaps I don't have to.

Rebecca, you might also want to test out Koh I Noor Progresso woodless colored pencils. Said to be lightfast with only 24 colors. The more I use it, the more I like it. If it is truly lightfast, it displaces Prismacolor Artstiks. It's rather opaque too. My experiments last night here.