To give you some guidelines, current Amazon prices are looking like this:
Polychromos,( Faber Castell) 120 set, an eyewatering £136.99
Prisma, 150 set. £86.14
Arteza, 72 set.£65.99
Spectrum Noir Colourblend, set of 7 boxes, 144 pencils, £63.04
Dropping down to the 'budget' ranges, we have:
Castle, 120 set, at £39.99
Zenacolor, 160 set, £27.99.
So basically the Zenacolor gave me the most pencils for the best price. The Amazon reviews were quite acceptable, I thought, with the majority (91%) giving 4 & 5 stars.
This is the top layer of pencils.
The lid of the box also has magnets on the flap, so the lid stays closed, which is a nice touch.
The second layer. You can see the finger grips at either end. The plastic layers are not incredibly flimsy, but as they are quite long, care does need to be taken in lifting them out, and keeping them level. One or two Amazon reviews mention them being damaged in the corners on arrival, but mine were perfect.
and the fourth and final one.
All four layers here, so you can see the colour range. And of course you can rearrange them in a flow that suits you best.
But of course, how they perform is the important part, so as I wanted to add a bit of colour to some images I'd just stamped, which is what I really want them for, I gave them a trial.
This is the piece I wanted to add a little colour to. It's stamped in Archival Cobalt, and the squares were coloured with Distress Inks.
I intended to add some colour to the flowers, and some shading to the Pebble People.
I have to say here that I am no colouring expert, and my biggest fault is being a little too heavy handed!
I began by adding some of a mid blue to the petals, and to be honest, I could have stopped at that.The pencils went on over the ink with no difficulty.
But I added some of a slightly darker blue over that.
I forget to soften my strokes as I get further along! That makes blending so much easier. I think I may also have jumped shades a bit too far.
I was curious how the yellow would appear on top of the blue, but it's very well pigmented, so gave a good clear yellow on top of the blue ink. No sign of a green tinge to it.
Added a little of a more orange yellow to the edges, and to the stamens.
I went back to the very pale blue to add some shading on the people, and using a lighter hand made a big difference.
If I'd been a little more gentle with my colouring, the blend on the petals would have been much better.I did go back over them with the palest blue, which helped to smooth things out a little.
Also, the green for the leaves covered the blue with no change of colour.
And this is the finished piece. I definitely went too dark with the petals, but thats a lesson learnt for me.
As far as the pencils go, I have no complaints. They are not quite as soft as my Prismas, but at the price I think they will be perfectly acceptable for my purposes.They seem to blend just fine, so my next trial will be on plain white cardstock, rather than over ink, so will perhaps be more fair to them.
I have only used these pencils to blend with themselves, I haven't yet tried my Prisma blending pencil with them, as I wanted this to be a test for these pencils alone.
