Derwent Inktense Permanent Watercolour Pencils, Set of 36 in a Tin, 4mm Premium Core, Water-Soluble, Ideal for Colouring, Painting and Crafting, Professional Quality (2301842)

Love these water colour pencils. The colours are truly intense and the texture is smooth. Ideal for outdoor sketching

Great starter packs, excellent quality for colouring on fabric

These are wonderful for use with or without water, blend smoothly, I will definitely buy these again

...half a year later (older, wiser (hah!), and with far more experience), these have turned to fierce addiction, a real goody to take on your travels! I simply cannot wait to wet the paper, just to see the inks transform something stale and dare I say, pasty and pencil-coloured looking, into something coherently marvellous, essentially: painted! With the basic shades, a mix of cool and warm, you can mix most colours (note the stupid names - Sea Blue, Bright Blue, Tangerine, Chili Red, etc). This 24 pencil tin goes far, and I've no intention of adding to the collection. Colours have never been so bright, fierce and bold - note they are inks which they are rather hush hush over, not pigments (albeit a fuzzy line but the former stain, hence will fade with time, so keep work away from sun - and any good colourist will know how to dull them accordingly for a catalogue of shades and hues. They claim to be permanent, but I'm not so convinced, but they do work on fabric amazingly! I was initially phased by the difficulty of working dry media into wet, expecting WC. Don't get water-soluble pencils thinking they're a dry form of WC, they're not: don't expect gorgeous washes. This is mostly for anal, detail work. They say they are easy to layer, i.e. using the dry pencil over a wash once dry, but it's not easy, unless your paper is heavy enough to withstand such working - I've found normal cartridge paper tends to break up. BUT, saying that, you can splatter (moisten the tip, use a brush to send a spray) and use a wet tip and 'paint' (but I've found the tip too softened to 'paint'). Go light, these are intense, hence the namesake. Now that I've a decent set of traditional WC, I would not chose these over them (whatever they say, doing the dry pencilling bit and moistening them after is tedium, something easily and more pleasurable done with WC and a good sable), but they're different mediums with individual qualities. But these will definitely go in my bag for holidays (with a water brush or not, since one charm is the ability to do the 'painting' at a more suitable time). So handy and great for mixing effects with normal WC. Relatively easy to sharpen, some are very soft and shatter easily. And they trumpet 'aquarelle pencils' (yes, I've a set of these to compare, and I rarely use them in favour of these beauties) in their density of colour, lay down and saturation which are funnily enough very similar in appearance to WC. If you're seeking for a look similar to WC (pale, washy tones), you're better off with aquarelle pencils, for these intense are so bold, you'd need a feather touch and patience (these saturated colours are more like felt-tipped pens). One last thing, a small annoyance, is their chunky, round shape, bouncing all over the place and hence making them more susceptible to shattering at the core. No biggie. Really they're not WC pencils, 'aquarelle', or the same as other sold water-soluble pencils. These are water-soluble INK pencils

Derwent Inktense Water-Soluble Pencils are undoubtedly a high-quality product, although they come with a slightly higher price tag. One disappointment was the misleading presentation—advertising a set of 24 pencils, yet only receiving 12. Initially, I felt cheated by the discrepancy and considered returning them. However, upon trying them, I was truly impressed. These pencils are exceptionally pigmented and make layering a breeze. Once dry, the colours become permanent, which is a unique and remarkable feature. Their vibrant quality and ease of use are unparalleled, and I'm not aware of any comparable alternatives. Despite the initial frustration, this product won me over and earned my appreciation.

Fabulous to work with especially on watercolour paper Can be used without water Bright colours to choose from and maybe a full set would be better

I love these oh so much. Do not confuse these with watercolour pencils. They are different. They are more like paint or ink than pencils. Once they're dry, they are permanent and no amount of water will activate and move the colour around (speaking for paper artwork, not other things like fabrics that might go in the washing machine). This is great because it means you can go over and add finer details with a different shade or colour without those details blending in to the layers below, like it would with watercolour pencils. Furthermore, because they are so intense in colour, you don't need to add nearly so much colour before activating with water like you would with watercolour pencils to get a lovely intense and vibrant look. But they are versatile enough to allow you to get soft looks too - just use less colour to the page before adding water or just use your brush to pick up colour directly from the pencil and then applying the colour to the page that way. Another option is to apply colour to only part of where you want to the colour to go and use the water to move the colour around, thus creating some lovely gradients of dark/intense to light/pale. So many techniques can be used that I won't even go into them all. The only criticism I have is that the colours on the end of the pencil barrel don't really reflect the colour of the actual ink. That's easily remedied just by creating a colour swatch for yourself and using that to determine your colour scheme rather than relying on the pencil to tell you the colour. That's such a minor issue, though. I so wish I had just jumped in and purchased the full 72 set instead of just the 36 set. I did not anticipate loving these as much as I do. I would dearly love it if Derwent did a secondary 36 set with the rest of the colours so that I didn't have to double up on half of my colours or resort to buying them open stock. But open stock is an option and thus, the smaller sets are worth buying if you want to spend less just to try out a selection of the colours. The packaging for this was well thought out. Not only was the tin sealed with plastic and some easy to peel stickers on either end of the tin, but inside had a seperate plastic covering over the pencil tray and strips of cardboard over the pencils to hold the pencils in place on the tray, thus not allowing the pencils to move around during transit. Well thought out and such a nice touch. One other thing to note: If you're a serious artist and intend to hang or sell your paintings or other artistic creations, be aware that although they're permanent, not all the colours are lightfast. You may wish to look into which colours are and consider if you're going to need to use some sort of UV fixitive to help protect your work.

Brought the 48 Derwent Fine Art Pencils a few years ago & really liked them, but now as I've moved towards watercoloring, wanted a good set. Beautiful colours, add water & they intensivy, as it says on the tin. On the 3rd layer the darker colours are very similar & feel they could of had more variety in the purple's, pinks, & reds. ordered them & was told they would take 3days to reach me, but to my absolute delight they arrived the next day! Spent a delightful couple of hours making a swatch of all the colours. The laydown is soft & creamy & with water added even more vibrant, also the light laydown colours appear quickly. Know I will have many happy hours using these.