Man, I wish I had all those pencils for myself. I could work miracles.

Gosh! I love new colored pencils!

wow i just faved this because i love pencils!! you have the most awesome collection!!!

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katerinaart.com


Fantasy and Portraiture 2008 Calendar

I just love colored pencils. They are the best creation ever. better than markers or crayons. neat image, great idea.

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desire is a stranger you think you know

I can never get the pencils out of the case on the bottom left, but that's just me. I keep breaking the tips of the prismas... don't tell my sister, lol.

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Don't forget about the people who are suffering.
Iraq. East Timor. Darfur. Myanmar. Haiti. Pakistan. Burma.
Just because they stopped showing it on the news does not mean it's stopped happening.

Thank you! I always loved the way they look when they're all lined up in spectrum array. Just seeing them makes me want to draw something.

--
Robert A. Sloan, writer and artist
Visit Explore-Oil-Pastels-with-Robert-Sloan.com, my oil pastels site!

Whichever way you push them out, try pushing them out in the other direction. I know that when I replace one in the case, I usually slide it in pointy end first to get it into the loop. Getting them out again, sometimes I have to fold the zipper back so that there's a clear path for the point to go or it'll break.

Ow yeah, you and your sister share the prismas set. Yipe. Your secret's safe with me -- unless she read this comments thread.

It took me a while to learn how to get pencils in and out of the Global Leather cases easily. If you have a lot of trouble, you could try fooling around with different ways of doing it with a regular cheap pencil, till you find the way that works for you.

--
Robert A. Sloan, writer and artist
Visit Explore-Oil-Pastels-with-Robert-Sloan.com, my oil pastels site!

Thank you! I love how they look all massed together. I did this just to illustrate the article, but now I'm getting to love it as itself!

--
Robert A. Sloan, writer and artist
Visit Explore-Oil-Pastels-with-Robert-Sloan.com, my oil pastels site!

Yes, you could! The place to start is saving money and looking online. If you can buy things at eBay, or get someone else to, there are some sellers who post 120 color and 132 color sets of Prismacolor Premier for a "Buy It Now" price of $56 or something like that. They start it at really low prices, ten or twenty dollars, to get lots of bids and get people fighting at auction to go over the "Buy It Now" price. However, they get them cheap enough they do list those Buy It Now prices, so that's a bargain even more than you'd get from Blick.

Next, sign up for the free catalogs online from [link] and [link] and watch for seasonal sales, also with ASW sign up for the email coupons. Combining a sale price with an email coupon for $20 off or $30 off or something can bring the big sets down very cheap. ASW (the second link) has better on-sale prices on giant sets of colored pencils. Also they have full range sets on some brands Blick doesn't carry. Blick has better service though, and the difference isn't much -- especially if you watch the website for the last coupon of the month (usually) -- it's 20% off any order over $100. Orders over $200 get free shipping.

So getting together with local friends to split a Blick order and push it over $200 will get $16 free stuff for both or all of you.

I haven't paid retail price for colored pencils since I started using mail order catalogs. If you can't buy things online, just save up, use the print catalog order form and buy a postal money order with the money to send off for it. Waiting a few days knocks off a lot when it's something that expensive!

Blick Studio Artist Pencils are the ones on the right, the 72 color set is normally $49 and often on sale for $42 or even $38. They are really good.

The different sets all have different colors. The woodless set on the left is 72 Cretacolor Aqua Monoliths in a Global Classic leather pencil case, they are woodless watercolor pencils. They are expensive but will last forever because they're woodless, they don't wear down as fast.

Koh-I-Noor Progresso Woodless colored pencils are the cheapest Artist Grade ones. The set of 24 is under $10 online, probably under $16 offline, and they are woodless so they wear down slower. I use THAT set to cover large areas so that I don't use up the more expensive ones as fast, and 24 colors is not too bad a range for a portable set. A great bargain.

The set in the tin is 120 Faber-Castell Polychromos, the set came with a good DVD of art instruction and I got it on sale, can't remember which site.

I have been collecting large sets of artist grade colored pencils for three years now. There are several sets I don't have yet. They all have different colors except black, white, silver, gold and lemon yellow -- other colors don't match at all, each one has different greens, oranges, reds, pinks, purples, blues, browns, grays. Actually several yellows might be redundant between sets, it's harder to see the difference between yellows. But even so, these sets combine to give a bigger range than any one set can do, and there's reason to have patience and collect them over years. I found I don't go through them as fast when I can switch which sets I'm using for which artworks.

I didn't get the big set of Derwent Coloursoft yet, and I haven't gotten Design Bruynzeel mostly because I have to order it someplace different that doesn't have anything else I want, though it's under $60 and not too bad for price. The big one I'm really waiting for is Caran d'Ache Pablo, which is $195 for the 120 color set and way out of reach financially.

I also eventually want Derwent Watercolor and Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils in their biggest sets, the Faber-Castells will exactly match the Polychromos and the Derwents exactly match 72 of my Derwent Artist pencils.

Hehehe, yep, I'm a collector blathering about his collection. It is worth it to collect them, though. They cost a lot less per pencil when you get the big sets, and sometimes the big sets on sale are very reasonable. ASW has the big wood box 120 Derwent Artist set on sale pretty often, it's about $114 on sale but it's a fancy wood box set and the box is luscious. That's the only place I've seen the full range of Derwents. But I may get 72 Derwent Studio too after I get the others, so as to spare the expensive Artist ones and use the Studio where I can.

--
Robert A. Sloan, writer and artist
Visit Explore-Oil-Pastels-with-Robert-Sloan.com, my oil pastels site!

Thanks for the tip. Also, I read your article, which I have yet to rate, highly might I add, and I found it really really useful. We don't have all of the brands you mentioned in the article here, alas, there are many sets I can't get, but still, it was really useful.

I have pencils of most of the brands you can buy here and over the years, I've collected and currently have around 125-150 pencils, so I don't have much problems.

Regarding the article, there are indeed some colors that get worn out faster than others, but in people use the less, so I can't even find them in replacements.

And, finally, most of my pencils belon to the brand Faber Castell, which I don't recall you mentioning. I just wanted to add that they have a good range and variety of colors and they cover the whole surface of the paper. I mean, they're probably the most important "artistic" brand here.

Anyway, thank you again for the tips.

Faber Castell produces Red Line inexpensive (but very good for inexpensive) colored pastels, and Faber Castell "Polychromos" the art colored pencils. The big set with the two loose trays fanned out in the picture is Faber Castell colored pencils. They have a huge range of colors, 120 colors in the largest set, and they do cover the whole paper well. I liked the CD that came with my big set, it has techniques I never tried before. I know the Red Line ones are really good for cheap colored pencils because I got a set of 24 on Clearance just for a lark.

Oh that's neat! You have a good range with 125 to 150 pencils, no wonder most of them are Faber-Castell!

There are some sets I can't get that are hard to find too. That's why I haven't gotten the 45 Design Bruynzeel set yet, even though all my colored pencils art books mention them as so great and even give color charts for them.

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed my article. I am very proud of my How To articles, because it took me three years to learn how to write How To instead of fantasy fiction or science fiction. I had no plot, no characters, no dialogue, no conflict... how was I to make any article interesting let alone tell people what to do? LOL... I finally got it recently and so I am thrilled someone likes my How To!

And thank you for planning to rate it highly, that helps keep it on the front page where more people will see it.

--
Robert A. Sloan, writer and artist
Visit Explore-Oil-Pastels-with-Robert-Sloan.com, my oil pastels site!