Castle Art Coloured Pencils

I used to have a full set of Faber-Castell Polychromos coloured pencils.  They're a professional, very fancy, very good, very expensive set.  Except that I didn't use them to even a fraction of their ability, and I had a friend who would have done.  So I gave them to her.  And then I needed some more coloured pencils, so I got some slightly fancy, very, slightly expensive ones.

 

When I got them, back in July 2024, they were £30.  At the time of writing they're £33 on Amazon.

They come in a nice tin, with a list of all the colours in the lid.

And they come with a fancy booklet too.

Which has lots of very detailed information on how to use them.

Including information about how to sharpen them, and what different types of point will achieve.

I love the thoroughness.  I also love the fact that there was an extra leaflet with a full on tutorial.

I didn't follow it, but it was still very cool.  There was even a product catalogue showcasing all the different mediums that Castle Arts make, and which colours come in which range.  It had a very satisfying colour chart.

There was a card for signing up to the Castle Arts Club, which I didn't do.  And there was a swatch card, which I did a couple of squares in before I remembered to photograph it. 

One more bit of paperwork - that lovely sheet of vellum you can see under the swatch card - and we're finally through to the pencils.

So so so pretty!

They come on little trays, with handy little loops for picking up each tray.  

Time to start messing around.  There's a bunch of little tests I do with new art supplies, including layering them, and blending them.  I like to sketch out a little monster, and I like to do a full coloured monster.

The pencils are pretty, I have a few niggles.  

First off, if you're going to number your pencils and put them in rainbow order, why mess up the numbers?  It was fine til you got to 20.

When I first opened the box there were a few colours out of place - like that yellow you can see on the bottom layer a few pictures ago, and these reds.

That picture is also a good example of one of the other niggles I had - the attention to detail regarding quality.  You can see on pencil 006 the excess foil stamped around the number.  And you can see on some of them, on 020 especially, the different end shapes.  

But that's all aesthetic stuff, and doesn't affect the quality of the pencils or their result.  

They are lovely.  Nice and smooth and creamy.  And the paint on the ends matches the colour you get pretty well. 

I filled out the swatch card, and did a page of swatches on black paper too.  

Then I settled down for the next step.  Once I'm down swatching new art supplies I like to create a full piece of art.  On white paper I did this cute teals and purples monster piece.

And on the black paper I did this cute little frog prince, inspired by a prompt from Katnipp.