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Friday, March 11, 2022

A Lucky Little Mouse & What to Look For in a Colored Pencil

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I'm back with more St. Patrick's Day goodness today - in the form of a shamrock mongering little adorable mouse!

But I also want to talk about colored pencils and what you should be looking for. 

I've been building my colored pencil collection since the 80s, so I don't want you to be alarmed when I tell you from my chair right now I can see 13 of my leather pencil cases, housing the Prismacolor collection I bought in high school, to my favorite watercolor pencils, to high end pencils like Luminance and Polychromos. 

And I use them all for different reasons on different types of projects. But I wouldn't say that colored pencils are my most often used medium, just because colored pencil work takes time, in comparison to watercolor, for example, which tends to take less time for cards, anyway. 

But in a collection that goes back more than 40 years, I've learned some things! 

My tip top artist quality pencils are definitely Luminance and Polychromos. These are luxurious pencils that are a definite splurge, and they have a very unique look and feel. 

But I buy MUCH less expensive pencils that I love as well, and use them often, like today. Many can even be classified as student grade - a term that you know I strongly dislike. I feel like the most important time to have good tools is when you're learning. So cheaper, lower quality art supplies, in my opinion, should not be called "student grade" because it's disrespectful to students. It implies we should give our students poor quality pigments and binders and paper. To me, it's like saying you should give a child learning to ride a bike, a bike that has faulty, unreliable parts. That's not something a parent would knowingly purchase. Why is it different with art supplies? It's not!

However, there are certain things in "artist quality" pigments that are important to distinguish from what I'll just call lower quality ones. One of the most important of those things is lightfastness. Higher end pigments will always have a higher lightfastness rating, as professionals who are creating art for sale, want those artworks to be lightfast over a long period of time in people's homes. So that's an important attribute of an artist quality product.

But when we are making cards - lightfastness isn't as important. Our cards are not going in the Smithsonian, as I always say. They're probably going into the recycle bin in a short period of time. 

So what I've found is there are a LOT of colored pencils that have beautiful, buttery pigments, high pigment loads like high end pencils, but that are not lightfast. And, the pencils, as a result, are much less expensive. Now - that's not to say that all inexpensive pencils are great, or even good - that is definitely not the case at all.

But one of these sets of high quality, well priced pencils is by Derwent - which is a super valuable art supply manufacturer to me. I have MANY of their products. 

And, like a lot of pencil manufacturers they have a wide range of pencils, so you can fit whatever works for your budget in and still get a really, really nice pencil. I bought these Derwent wax-based pencils just to see if they were the Derwent quality I'm used to, and they absolutely are. SUPER blendy, easy to use, and extremely affordable. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone learning colored pencil techniques for the first time, OR someone who loves colored pencils but doesn't want to spend $200. So I'm super happy they exist and you've seen them in my recent posts for that reason. PLUS the size of the collection is not huge - so I actually just keep them in the tin, which I literally never do with pencils - I love my uniform zipper cases. I label them on the zipper pull with wine charms and these chalkboard tags. 

So anyway - I did the tutorial at Splitcoast this week showing an edge to edge lace shaker in the written portion, and how to use painted lace you've used on your Gel Press in the video portion. You can see both parts of the tutorial here

I stamped the cute mouse on a sand top-fold card and colored him with the Derwent colored pencils. I die cut him and the layering sentiment and just glued them onto the shaker panel. I used a LOT of sequins - I mixed a pink mix and clear ones. The lace is from a departed loved one - it was the kind of lace you make curtains from, so the pieces are large enough to cut down to cover a card..


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Perfect little St. Patrick's Day mouse :) 

Here are links to all my favorite colored pencil tools, sharpeners, cases, case labels and brands - and I've 
linked you to the whole category of both "student" and artist grade pencils so you can price compare. 


Sweet Spring Mice | 6x8 Stamp Set –...
[ HNB ]
Sweet Spring Mice | Honey Cuts –...
[ HNB ]
Bitty Buzzwords: Bloom | Honey Cuts –...
[ HNB ]
Derwent Chromaflow Colored Pencils -...
[ BLIC ]
Hero Hues Sand Top Folded Cards
[ HA ]
Sequin Mix - The Pink Lady – Picket...
[ PFS ]
Global Art Classic Leather Pencil Cases
[ BLIC ]
Amazon.com: ACE SELECT Wine Glass...
[ AMZUS ]
Amazon.com: American Crafts 10-Piece...
[ AMZUS ]
Blackwing Long Point Pencil Sharpener...
[ BLIC ]
Blick Pencil Sharpener | BLICK Art...
[ BLIC ]
Dux Glass Inkwell Sharpeners | BLICK...
[ BLIC ]
Ipoint Orbit Pencil Sharpener, Turquoise
[ AMZUS | BLIC ]
Blick Artists' Gloves | BLICK Art...
[ BLIC ]
Artist's Choice 110lb White Card Stock
[ GNK ]
Colored Pencils: Artist & Student...
[ BLIC ]
Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils and...
[ BLIC | SSS ]
Caran d'Ache Luminance Colored...
[ BLIC ]
Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Pencil...
[ BLIC ]
Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils -...
[ BLIC ]
Derwent Battery-Operated Eraser
[ BLIC | AMZUS ]
Staedtler Mars Plastic Erasers
[ BLIC ]
Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -...
[ BLIC | AMZUS ]



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