Holbein Artist Watercolor Pencils Review

Well, Holbein have done it again, if you have followed The Art Gear Guide for a while now, you will know that I have made no secret of how much I love the Holbein Colored Pencils. Their texture, layering ability and not to forget their exquisite palette, especially the pastel tones.

I have also used Holbein’s watercolour tubes and again, their quality is excellent, with consistent lightfast ratings and strong pigmentation throughout. For the longest time I always wonder why Holbein had never produced a set of watercolour pencils to the same standard as their watercolour tubes or pans and their Holbein Colored Pencils.

No more wondering, we are here, it has arrived, Holbein have done just that and produced a 50 set of Watercolor pencils. I was so honoured and privileged when the wonderful gentleman at Holbein Japan reached out to me, a fantastic man I have been dealing with for years from Holbein Japan, asked me to review this new addition to the Holbein family of artist supplies.

Holbein Watercolor Pencils Characteristics.

The packaging for the 50 set of Holbein Artist Watercolor Pencils is almost identical to the 50 set of Holbein Artist Colored Pencils. Rigidly tough cardboard exterior for the packaging, the artwork on the front of the box is the same as the now simplified Holbein Artist Colored Pencils, straight lines indicating the colors inside the set.

The Holbein Artist Watercolor pencils are hexagonal in shape, an excellent idea given how fragile watercolor pencil cores are in general. Holbein say the core is 3.8mm but my instrument for measurement shows the core a little thicker at 4 to 4.2mm, nicely encased in a beautiful 7.4mm barrel. Again Holbein claim the barrel to be 7.9mm but my instruments measure the barrel slightly smaller. At the end of the day we are only point millimetres of a difference. The main body of the pencils are varnished plain wood, giving the pencils a sophisticated artistic appearance, a made up term by me I know, but the best one that fits these beautiful Holbein pencils.

Along one side of the pencils we have in clear black print “HWCP”, which is closely followed by, Holbein Artist Watercolor Pencils in clear black print. At the end of the barrel we see a paint brush icon, this is followed by an inch long pigment identifier. Printed on the pigment identifier is an alpha numeric, silver leaf print, the number identifies the pigment and is identical with the pencils tube or pan counterpart. By the way, this is a crucial element of the Holbein Watercolor Pencils which we will cover further into the review; you won’t want to miss this.

On the opposite side of the pencil we have a small print of “Made in Japan” this is followed by a bar code number and bar code. Toward the very end of the barrel we also find vital information pertaining to the internal core of the pencil; here we see the pigment name printed followed lightfast rating in the form of stars. Holbein have used the ASTM Lightfast rating LF1 to LF5 on the pencils, with LF1 being the highest lightfast rating and 5 the lowest.

Holbein Artist Watercolor Pencils Performance

I can’t tell you how excited I was to get my hands on these gorgeous Holbein Watercolor Pencils. Before I get into the performance of the pencils, I do want you to know that I am also in the middle of a comparison between the Holbein Artist Watercolor Pencils and the Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle. This should not only be an indication as to the quality of the Holbein Watercolor Pencils but also an exciting comparison to look forward to.

As always I completed a swatch of the full Holbein Watercolor Pencil 50 Count, I always like to test the art supplies on as many different quality papers and so completed the swatch on Derwent Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper. This is a nice watercolor paper but not of the highest quality and not 100% cotton, I wanted to see the result on a lower quality paper.

AS you can see from the images, I applied a black marker line through each swatch box, allowing us to get an impression of how transparent or opaque the paints are. At first I obviously had to apply the Holbein Watercolor Pencils in their dry format, which also provide’s us an insight into how the pencils dry perform on dark paper.

As you can see, every color in the set is strong, bright and vibrant in their dry format. I also applied the pigment names and lightfast details in each swatch box to help identify all the relevant information, important to that pencil.

As with so many high quality watercolor pencils, the real magic happens once water is introduced and the Holbein Artist Watercolor Pencils are no exception. On introducing water to each dry layer of Holbein Watercolor Pencils, each and every one of the layers exploded with color, the layers dissolved effortlessly with zero residue under the activated pigment.

More often than not, when you apply low quality watercolor pencils to paper and then activate them with water, you can still see remains of the pencil strokes under the layer of paint. This shows us that the lower quality watercolor mixtures contain more binder than pigment or color. With the Holbein Watercolor Pencils, look closely at the swatch and you can barely see that pencils were applied in order to achieve the layer of paint.

Holbein were keen for me to also show you all just how each Holbein Watercolor Pencil is identical to their watercolor tubes or pans. There are one or two other companies that manufacture watercolor pans and tubes and then have gone on to create watercolor pencils, however, none of them have perfectly matched their counterparts for one reason or another.

So when Holbein asked me to include this particular test in my review I really never thought it would amount to anything, I couldn’t have been more wrong if I tried. This time I completed my test on the brand new block watercolor paper from Etchr, that will be another review in its own right, the etchr paper is 100% cotton and exceptional quality.

As you can see from the image, I was sent a set of 12 Holbein Watercolor tubes, of the 50 colors 11 matched up with the 12 tubes, Permanent Yellow Light was the only tube not matched with a pencil. I have applied the tube version of the watercolor above and the watercolor pencil version below. I am so glad that I made clear distinctions and labeled them because had I just applied the tube and pencil side by side without labels, I wouldn’t have been able to identify them.

I included a black marker line through the test squares before applying the watercolors, although this was not necessary, as I completed the same test on the swatch, however I wanted to display if there was a difference in opacity between the Holbein tubes and pencils, which as you can see there wasn't .

The similarity, no scrap that, both pencil and tube are identical, the comparisons are remarkable, although the pigments are the same, the delivery methods are different and sometimes this can impact the results. I completed two black squares and applied the Chinese white from both the Tube and Pencil formats. This is the only comparison were things look a little different, however this can simply be down to applying too much tube watercolor to my brush.

Next up was the artwork and this time, because I enjoyed the paper surface so much, I used the Cold Pressed Etcher paper. As you can see I completed a seasonal painting given I completed this review in November, as with all watercolor pencil reviews, I used the Caran d’Ache Palette I rave about so often to allow better mixing of the pencils and of course direct application of the pencil to the paper.

I really enjoyed the entire process and just loved using the Holbein Watercolor Pencils, the mixing of the pencils really didn’t take a lot of core application to the palette in order to achieve an excellent amount of paint with good strength and vibrancy, not washed out or weak pigmentation.

Holbein Watercolor Pencils Lightfast Information

As much as I absolutely love the Holbein Colored Pencils and now the Holbein Watercolor Pencils, there is one thing I take issue with and that is their lightfast system. Don’t get me wrong, Holbein are not the only company that does this, Caran d’Ache also do it with their Supracolor Soft II watercolor pencils, using three stars for a 1-8 Blue Wool Lightfast rating system.

With the Holbein Watercolor Pencils, they are rated using the ASTM Lightfast System, LF1 to LF5, however, this is where things get confusing. LF 1 on the ASTM system is the highest lightfast rating and LF 5 the least, so on that logic you would assume LF 1 on the barrel of the pencil would be indicated with 1 star all the way up to 5 stars for LF 5, except this is not the system at all.

Four Stars represent LF 1, Three Stars equals to LF 2, Two Stars is equal to LF 3, One Star is equal to LF 4 and no stars, no marks at all on the barrel is equal to LF 5, the lowest lightfast rating. I am not sure why LF 1 doesn’t equal one star, this would make things so much easier to understand, nevertheless, this is the way Holbein and a few other colored pencil companies rate and identify their pencils.

Of the 50 Holbein Watercolor Pencils there are 4 pencils with LF 1 = 4 Stars, 16 Holbein Watercolor Pencils are rated LF 2 = 3 Stars, 20 Holbein Watercolor Pencils with LF 3 = 2 Stars, 10 Holbein Watercolor Pencils with LF 4 = 1 Star and finally no pencils with LF 5 or 0 Stars.

Given the lightfast information above, I know that all artists who sell their original work will not be able to use the Holbein Watercolor Pencils because of the 50 count total, only 4 pencils can be used or at a push 20, some artists will use LF 1 and 2 ratings. That unfortunately rules out 30 colors which breaks my heart and it breaks my heart because the Holbein Watercolor Pencils are gorgeous to use.

Holbein Watercolor Pencils Availability and Price

As things stand, the Holbein Watercolor Pencils come in two set sizes, a set of 50 and 24. I know that when it comes to amazing quality watercolor pencils, a large number of pencils is not necessary, mixing and blending watercolor pencils is much easier and more effective than traditional colored pencils.

That being said, I serious feel I have a problem with art supplies and so I would absolutely love Holbein to create a full 150 set of the Watercolor Pencils to line up with the Holbein 150 Colored Pencil set. Whilst mixing is easier with watercolors, there are some amazing colors in the 150 Holbein Colored Pencil set that absolutely cannot be mixed or blended, so manufactured by the Holbein Chemists would be preferable

The Holbein Watercolor Pencils are not officially available until January 2026, however if you look in the right places, you might be able to find a set. The Holbein Watercolor Pencils will also be sold open stock and as soon as official prices are released I will update on my website, The Art Gear Guide.

Holbein Watercolor Pencil Conclusion.

I absolutely loved using the Holbein Watercolor Pencils, as I mentioned at the very beginning of the review I made no secret of the fact that I have always loved the Holbein Colored Pencils and was very excited for the release of the Holbein Watercolor Pencils.

I enjoyed using them on the lower grade watercolor paper from Derwent but I was really impressed with the Holbein Watercolor Tubes and Pencils comparison. After having completed a similar test on two other watercolor brands, I really was not expecting much, however to my utter surprise the comparison was impeccable. Let’s not forget that we are talking about watercolours but both offer very different delivery systems, pencils include binders, where as the tubes include a lot less additional ingredients.

I was really happy with the artwork I completed using the pencils and the Etchr 100% Cotton Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper took the Holbein watercolors beautifully, there is no doubting the fact that quality paper certainly makes the artists process much more enjoyable, yielding better results.

the lightfast information is upsetting, not for me personally, I don’t sell my work, my art is placed into a drawer and never sees the light of day again. However, when I find an art supply I really love, I want everyone to experience it, I want everyone to enjoy the product and receive the same excitement I did. For me its like when you taste something amazing and you want your loved ones to tase it as well, that’s the way I feel when I find a wonderful art supply, but I know so many might avoid these amazing pencils on lightfast ratings alone.

I would love to see Holbein release a 150 set of Holbein Watercolor Pencils and who knows, perhaps one day they will, just as Derwent did with the gorgeous Drawing Pencils, but we might have a while to wait. If you are not the type of artist who sells your original art, I really think you are going to love the Holbein Watercolor Pencils. However, even if you do sell your own work, I really think giving the Holbein Watercolor Pencils would provide you with an enjoyable experience.

You can also check out my YouTube review of the Holbein Artists Watercolor Pencils if written reviews are not for you. On top of that, I have also added a short speed drawing demonstrating the Holbein Watercolor Pencils potential and their capabilities. If you would prefer a more detailed look at the artwork and how the paper holds up, you can check out the still images I have added to the website, where you can click on any image, it will automatically enlarge, allowing you to inspect the artwork in your own time.