150 color paper box-set Holbein colored pencil (japan import)

Product Information

The other tradeoff, when considered as an artist-grade pencil, is the relatively low lightfastness rating. Prismacolors are very affordable, so they may actually overperform on the lightfastness charts relative to cost, but if you are using these in final drawings just be aware: 59 out of 150 (39%) are rated the best Lightfast I, 26 colors (17%) are Lightfast II, and 65 colors (43%) are rated below museum grade at Lightfast III through V. For individual colors, this chart from Prismacolor details the Lightfastness rating. Holbein uses metallic gold to mark all of the pencils which is hard on aging eyes, especially when the pencil is beige or yellow. Fortunately, the font is large. I do end up rolling the pencil to read it, especially when my studio work lights are on.

Holbein offers 2 whites, one “White” and one “Soft White”. Soft white does not mean beige. The Soft White core is physically softer and soapier in feel, similar to Derwent’s Chinese White Drawing Pencil. Holbein white is dense with a hint of translucency like Prismacolor White. I strongly recommend all four white pencils mentioned in this paragraph.

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. 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 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.

And I couldn’t use Holbeins in any project shared online because one of you would ask for supply info. What would you do? Buy them from the UK and pay almost twice the price? The names make sense, something that can’t be said about all colored pencils. They use paint names when appropriate but also name colors after food, flowers, or recognizable objects. I’ve not noticed any weirdly wrong names. 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

Characteristics of High-quality Coloured Pencils

Lightfastness for the Polychromos is rated on a 3 star scale by the manufacturer: 100 colors have the best 3 star rating and 20 have a 2 star rating. What this means in terms of lightfastness by the latest standards is unclear, but there is no doubt that this is the pencil that many artists swear by and are comfortable using. Holbein Artists' Pencils are a range of soft and vivid artists' coloured pencils from leading arts manufacturer Holbein. 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. In addition, there are plans to sell iPad and MacBook case handmade from material representative of the Nishijin-ori used to make Japanese kimonos. And fat? Fat is oil. Fat tends to mean an animal by-product but folks, so is petrolium. Crude oil is really, really, really old fat.