Pentel Arts WATERCOLOUR PENCIL SET- Assorted (Pack of 24 Colour) (CB9-24U)

Pridotto ok, in linea con altri modelli.

The quality of these watercolour pencils is great! I'm by no means an expert, and barely an amateur, but I wanted to spend time tinkering with watercolour techniques, spending some isolation time during the pandemic making art. I got these, and found they were vibrant and rich looking even when water applied. They offer limited numbers of colours but the ones they do have worked to draw/paint landscapes fairly well. They come in a package as shown in the main product photo so they are definitely giftable and a great Christmas idea if you're looking for one. I would imagine that this, and a watercolour/mixed media book would make a budding or curious artist quite happy!The photo is of a swatch I did up, to show the versatility of the colours. They don't always translate to the page the same as they look, so I figured I'd lend some help by adding this. I won't subject anyone to my abstract renderings of Autumn leaves, but I thought this would do just as well (albeit less hilarious).These pencils are also easy to sharpen and wrote smoothly- quite like a dream, actually. It reminded me of the days of Laurentien pencil crayons in school, they were so good. They also didn't break easily. I tried to use multiple pressures when doing the swatches to show how it holds up when pressed on harder, versus lighter. They also layer quite well so if you're making a more complex piece of art, this is a great product for more in-depth techniques as well. The lines also don't show up as much when applying water to drawings, which is a big deal because that's not always the case. Meaning that if you draw something and you've pressed down a bit too hard and are worried about the lines showing up when you're turning it into a watercolour painting of sorts, it blends easily so it seems to have more patience for those establishing their technique/style.Highly recommend!

Die Stifte sind gut wasserlöslich, läßt sich gut colorieren.

These pencils are part of the Pentel Arts range which always seems to produce good value art products of a quality far above that implied by the price. At this price they are very much at the bargain end of the market cost-wise anyway.The pencils, which arrive pre-sharpened, and have a hexagonal shape are described by Pentel on their website as having strong pigment colours and beautiful blending properties - both of which I’ll explore later in the review. Pentel go on to describe them as having strong break-resistance and I would have to agree with that. I couldn’t find any information about them being non-toxic though as they are Pentel products I should imagine that they are. They aren’t stated as being lightfast and I would doubt at this price that this would be the case. If that bothers you you’ll have to use fixative on any image you are desperate to preserve or make a digital copy asap.In use:I use a LOT of water-soluble media and one thing you find with messing about with water-soluble media is that it can be as frustrating as it is satisfying. This especially applies to the water-soluble pens where blending colours and softening and removing lines to create ethereal colour washes is often easier to imagine than to achieve. Most of these experiments have utilised either the Pentel Aquash water brush pens or the own-brand equivalents supplied with my various Chinese-manufactured colour brush pens. I had also tried the Aquash’s with other pencils, which claimed to be water-soluble (some simply weren’t) which is when you realise that there’s a significant difference between a pencil set that claims to be water-soluble (and might technically be to some minute degree) and actual watercolour pencils like these.The first thing I noted was that the pencils all had a good tip on them and were pleasant enough to hold with their hexagonal 'won’t roll off the desk' shape. On each pencil is written ‘watercolor pencil’ ‘CB9’ (me either), ‘Pentel’ and a number, which is presumably the colour code. The pencil bodies are coloured approximate to their lead colour - fairly accurately actually.As a regular pencil used dry they deposit a fair amount of pigment with no bother and quite smoothly though some granular deposits were left on the page occasionally that you need to brush off. You can blend the colours dry to some extent, but why would you when the main benefit is to be able to do so more effectively by adding water? Having used and reviewed a number of oil-based colour pencils last year; which ranged from excellent break-resistance and sharpening but hard to lay down pigment, to decent break-resistance and rubbish sharpening ability and easier to lay down pigment, I was interested to see how these compared. I don’t know what the composition of the lead of these pencils is exactly (wax?) but for me they got the balance of break-resistance to smoothness of colouring about right. They sharpen okay as well - not to a needle point - but pretty decently.On the cardboard box they come in (which has a clever little tab to lift the flap open) they suggest drawing with the pencil first and then applying water via a brush to achieve watercolour effects. In my experimenting I used a range of methods (including the one above but with an Aquash pen replacing the brush).So, onto the crux of the matter, what were they like in watercolour usage? Well, lately I have been drawing upon (sic.) a book of my wife’s called ‘The English Coast’ as a source of photographs to copy/interpret. This I have done firstly with a mechanical pencil (the A120 A3 range), then outlined with fineliner before colouring with these pencils. The techniques that I then used to colour the sketch were a mixture of those that I have I used with water-soluble brushes and other pens (inc. the Pentel Sign’s) and that above suggested by Pentel.The methodsDirect colouring then adding water: having had negative experiences with brush pens and pseudo-water-soluble pencils and direct colouring and then blending, I was wary of doing the same with these. Although you will see videos of brush pens blending nicely after painting/drawing the reality is somewhat different (on mixed media paper anyway) as you have to be quick, apply loads of water (doesn't always work and buckles the paper/loses pigment) or colour very judiciously to achieve this. Due to my wariness I didn’t really employ this method until the final stages of the colouring (when I wanted to add more direct colour to avoid being too subtle) and in the blending experiments I tried after I completed the Maryport image. One thing I can say is that although you can still end up with visible lines it is not the extent of the water-soluble (felt-tip) pens and colouring softly greatly aided the smoothing out of the colours.Applying the Aquash brushes to the tips of the pencils to transfer pigment. This works very well and is akin to dabbing the Pentel Sign pen nibs onto a brush pen. As with that method I am pretty damned sure it isn’t good for the pens, or I this case pencils. To do this you inevitably transfer wetness to the pencil lead and I noticed that this softened (and in effect) blunted them a bit. When I dried off and cleaned up the pencil leads with a tissue after a colouring session a few of them snapped off as this method had weakened them. It isn’t terminal as sharpening them once they’ve dried will bring you a new tip to use but employing this method won’t aid the longevity of the pencils at all. It is a bit like dipping the pencils directly into a water jug (I didn’t do this on this test), which has a similar but less controlled effect in use and which again is not advised for the long life of pencils, I believe. In terms of usefulness with colouring though it does work quite well as you can apply pigment onto the Aquash, paint like it is a brush (only in a more familiar form to non-pianters) and go back for more pigment as required. I used this for some colouring some fine lines with the finer Aquash brush tip and found it very controllable but not suitable for larger areas.Using a plastic wallet as an impromptu palette: this is my favourite method for water-soluble coloured brush pens and so it was an obvious choice for me to try with these, too. There are differences though. Firstly, the current plastic wallet I am using is a bit rough-textured I think and so getting enough pigment out of the pencils onto it isn’t easy and I just hope that it isn’t damaging the pencils or the Aquash brushes. The advantage of this method is that it is easy to mix colours together and to decide how much water to add from the Aquash on the plastic sleeve, not the paper where it might be a case of damage done if you have added to much/little. I found though that getting enough colour onto the sleeve/palette to colour larger areas like the sea and sky was difficult using this method. The only way I found was to add lots of water to the sleeve and then apply the colour as a wash, though the results were then so light that several further applications were needed.Wet on wet - applying the pencils directly to an already wet paper and brushing it out: this method did tend to result in visible lines but that might be the effect you are looking for.Lastly, I drew some single colour and two colour (mixed) lines in my sketch book with these pencils and then used the Aquash brushes to smooth them out into rough lozenge shapes before inking Christmas tree shapes over the top with fineliners. I had done something similar with my review of Poetique’s brush pens and the results were actually upon reflection better than those experiments, and it was easier with the pencils to smooth out the lines and make them invisible.Overall the pencils performed well compared with water-soluble (felt-tip) pens, allowing both more control and more subtlety. Blending, and colour mixing was better than with the pens and creating shadows for example with a darker shade was much easier. Using a (large) watercolour brush over the Aquash would I am sure have brought additional possibilities still, though at the cost of familiarity of the tool (in my case). Oddly enough, the main image I used them in turned out to be more of a conventional pencil-coloured image than a full-on watercolour-type picture. That said, I was pleased with the subtlety of the effect and the midway between watercolour and colour pencil results produced in it.I don’t have a lot of experience with other watercolour pencils by which to judge these and yet from my usage of them I feel confident enough to thoroughly recommend them as a really excellent value set of watercolour pencils. Pentel have that knack of making decent, good value art products that are suitable for all the family and are often far better than the price tag would suggest. Of course there will be better performing premium watercolour pencils out there at a price offering more colour variety, but before you dip your toe (or brush, or Aquash) into those waters why not try these first as I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I would also add that I have the 12 piece set and these images were made with those but given the price of the 24 colour set there is no reason really not to buy these instead and have a wider choice of colours to use.

Used these for art club and worked really well!Kids found them easy to use, nice bold colours not washed out.