Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil Review
Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil Review
One of the biggest joys I get from running The Art Gear Guide, writing reviews, creating YouTube video reviews and drawing art is the relationship I have developed with all of you. I love getting feedback and I love to hear when you purchase a set of pencils based on one of the reviews and it has turned out to be a good buy. But I also love it when you guys suggest to me products to review and this is one such product that I was asked to review.
I had never heard of the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils, although when I was first asked to review them, my first instinct was that they belonged to the Faber Castell brand. I wasn’t exactly right, but not too far wrong either as I will show you throughout the review.
In researching these pencils, I learnt quite a lot about the three Faber Brothers, Lothar the oldest, Johann and Eberhard, which was incredibly interesting and quite sad in parts. Eberhard Faber was the youngest Faber brother and because of which was far down the line to inherit the family business of making pencils. As a result he decided to make a life for himself in America and in 1861 he started up his own pencil company. Not long after, the middle brother Johann started his own pencil business in Nuremburg in 1879 while the oldest brother Lothar continued running the family business after their father passed away. There is a lot more to the history which I will leave links to if you wish to purse, I know this is a review and not a history lesson, I just become so involved and interested in all things pencils and art supplies.
Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil Characteristics
The tin that the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils comes in is incredibly bright and colorful, on the set I purchased, it states that they are Artist Color, but we will examine this in more detail later into the review.
The Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil is quite a simple looking pencil and in actual fact one or two issues where came to the fore while using them. They are quit a chunky pencil, well weighted, well balanced and really comfortable to hold in the hand. They are a hexagonal barrel, which I know Colored Pencil artists are split on between a hexagonal and round barrel. The core is a 3.8mm core, filled with a surprising level of pigment and the barrel is approximately 7.8mm in diameter.
Unfortunately the barrel is incredibly sparse regarding information about the pencil. The barrel is a dark gunmetal grey with an inch long pigment identifier. The only information displayed on the barrel in silver leaf is “Artist Color” closely followed by the company name “Eberhard Faber”.
Ordinarily, I don’t get too bent out of shape if there is no pigment name printed on the barrel, so long as there is legend somewhere, either on the packaging or on the company website. There is no doubt, the pigment name being printed on the barrel is incredibly helpful, but as I mentioned above, so long as there are other methods of identifying the pigments, swatches can be made.
Unfortunately however with the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils, there is no reference whatsoever to the pigment names. This means that even if you make a swatch, based on how the pencils are laid out in the tin, should those pencils become mixed up, you are not going to know which color on the swatch corresponds with the pencils, which can make planning your art an unnecessary timely affaire.
The wood used for the barrel of the Eberhard Faber barrel is obviously of excellent quality given the effortless sharpening, no matter if a manual or hand crank sharpener is used. This in turns enables the Eberhard Faber to manifest an incredibly accurate core.
Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil Performance
On the tin of the Eberhard Faber “Artist Color” is printed and although I am incredibly fond of the Eberhard Faber, I would not categorise them as artist colored pencils, of course I may be a tad presumptuous by thinking that they meant Artist Quality rather than just insinuating that the pencil are for art.
The art work I completed with the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils was a simple botanical piece, which you can view in the form of a speed drawing should you wish. I was however pleasantly surprised with so many of the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil attributes given their middle of the road price point, which I will go into in more detail further.
The lay down of the Eberhard Faber was generously soft, but not to the extent that the core required sharpening every few minutes. Despite this soft and smooth lay down, the core did indeed maintain its point really quite well. As well as this the pigment strength was really quite impressive, again, considering the mid level pricing point and once compared to many other pencils in a similar bracket.
For the artwork and the testing, I used the Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media and on this paper the layering was excellent. I was able to apply many layers without bloom of residue of any kind forming on the surface. For the testing phase of the pencil, I applied six light layers and I know that I could have comfortably gone on with many more.
When I applied a single heavy application, the pigment strength was suitably impressive and once again, no sign of bloom or residue. With regards to blending, the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils performed way above their grade. The colors created from the blend were really very good, bright and clearly what they were expected to be.
Occasionally when blending colored pencils, yellow and red to equate orange, the orange is not always clearly visible and more often than not more closer to the red, very difficult to distinguish, but this was not the case with the Eberhard Faber.
Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil Sets Available
I have to admit, I had never heard of these pencils until I was specifically asked to review them, so I am not altogether sure of their popularity. Given that they are a German pencil and an extension of he amazing Faber Castell House, I am sure their popularity in Europe is much more than that of the UK. As a result their availability on sites such as Amazon and eBay are not fantastic, but they can be found and purchased occasionally.
The set that I purchased for the purpose of this review was the 48 set, incidentally the largest set available. The smaller sets are a 12 set, 24 set and 36 set.
Eberhard Faber Colored Pencil Lightfast
There is no lightfast information on the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils and nor should there be, the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils are not what we would class as artist quality pencils. They are however good for many other things such as adult colouring books, sketching, art that is just for you and not for sale etc.
I think sometimes people get really hyped up about products being lightfast, but it is important to understand that unless you are likely to be selling your work, and I mean the original art work, submitting art to galleries or art competitions, lightfastness is not important. I mention selling the original work, because there are other methods of selling your work without using highly lightfast products such as selling prints using archival inks and paper.
Please don’t misunderstand what I am talking about here, I am not suggesting that Lightfast ratings are not important, they are vital in the right circumstances, but not every situation requires you to own highly lightfast products.
Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils Pricing
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils a German European pencil and so the product availability may be limited in your area.
Here in the UK you will pay approximately £9.49 for the 12 Set of Eberhard Faber, for the 24 Set you will pay £22.46. For the 36 Set of Eberhard Faber you will pay £20.73 and I know this set is cheaper than the 24 set but some times that is the case on Amazon or any other such site. Finally, fo the largest 48 set you can expect to pay £31.46
Unfortunately I was only able to locate the 48 Set which will cost you $33.55, if I am able to locate the other sets of 12, 24 and 36 I will update this page. There are of course other Eberhard Faber products available, but not the exact Artist Color pencils that I have reviewed in this section.
Unfortunately in the EU Amazon I was unable to locate the 12 set of Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils, however I was able to price the remaining sets. For the 24 Set you can expect to pay €15.10, the 36 set of Eberhard Faber will cost approximately €26.99 and for the largest 48 set you can expect to pay €33.99.
Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils Conclusion
Interesting historical story aside, although the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils are not the least expensive, they are reasonably priced in my opinion. I have mentioned about the lightfast ratings in pencils such as these, so if it is a lightfast set of pencils you are looking for the Eberhard Faber will not meet your criteria.
The only real issue that I had with the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils was the lack of pigment naming anywhere and as I pointed out, no reference of a pigment name can be problematic and an unnecessary timely cost. Swatching does not really solve the issue as when you select a pencil from the tin, you still need to test it against the swatch to ensure the pencil meets the pigment you are looking for.
This issue aside, the performance of the pencils was pleasantly surprising. When it came to the layering test they performed excellently and the blending abilities of the pencils were equally reassuring. The Pigment strength of the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils are also bright and vibrant, however, with the largest set only 48, there is a lack of softer tones, but this is to be expected in smaller set sizes.
The Eberhard Faber Colored pencils are perfect for adult colouring books, sketching or art you are doing just for yourself. I really enjoyed using the pencils and I was pleasantly surprised with the art work I completed to help demonstrate the pencils. To see the YouTube video review of the Eberhard Faber Colored Pencils follow the link, or to watch the speed drawing that I have created you can do so by clicking the link. I have also added a page to the site where you can examine images I took of the art work at various stages of completion. Thank you so much for your amazing support, each and every one of you.
