The Art Gear Guide is your one stop shop for the most recent, up to date, honest reviews on all your favourite art supply products.
The purpose of this publication is to simply help clarify some information regarding the 24 sets of colored pencils by Castle Arts. I get quite a few emails or social media messages asking me about the Castle Art 24 sets and the difference between those pencils and the pencils in the larger 72 and 120 sets, hence this publication fo a little clarification.
The Swisscolor are quite a light feeling pencil in the hand, I know in the grand scheme of things a pencil is not a heavy object, however pencils do vary in weight and the Swisscolor is light. As well as the slight weight, the pencil is quite slim.
The Hovel Pencil Plane and Iris Drawing Compass from Makers Cabinet, two highly functional, yet breathtakingly stunning works of art in their own right. The Hovel Pencil Plane, a sophisticated sharpener, puts all the control in your hands when sharpening, whilst the Iris is for a particular artist, it to is a thing of beauty and perfect at performing its intended job.
For those of you new to Copic Markers or interested in become an Copic Marker artist, there is no doubt that the Copic Marker range is the industry standard fo illustrators world wide. Despite the amazing alternatives on the market now and most of them being much less expensive than Copics, I think it will be some time before Copic are completely knocked from their perch.
I have reviewed a few pencils from the Lyra family range and I have to say, I have always been impressed with the over all performances. I reviewed Lyra’s most popular pencil among colored pencil artists, the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor, in fact I have reviewed this pencil twice. I reviewed them a few months after I started the channel but completed a second review more recently,
I have wanted to get my hands on the Winsor And Newton Pigment Markers for such a long time now, but in order to create what I hope to be a decent review, I knew that I needed to purchase at least the 36 Set, which is the largest set Winsor And Newton sell of the markers. However the main problem was the cost, the 36 set of Pigment Markers was always used to be incredibly expensive, making the review process a little bit slow.
Without further ado, let’s get started on this years Luxury Art Christmas List 2020. Although these gift ideas are a little bit on the more expensive side, it is not the price that makes them luxury, it is the overall aesthetics and indulgence of the ideas.
On behalf of myself and The Art Gear Guide, I would like to wish you all an absolutely wonderful Christmas, I hope you have the most wonderful time but more importantly that you all remain in excellent health. for those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas I wish you all a wonderful holiday season.
Of the three lists I have compiled this year for Christmas, this is by far filled with the least expensive items, however, as I mentioned in one of the other lists, least expensive does not mean the most useless. Anyone in your life who enjoys art, adult colouring book or crafting, I am sure would be delighted to receive any one of these items.
I always make sure that I display the products I am reviewing, in particular colored pencils, on black paper. I know there are a lot of colored pencil artists out there who create some amazing work on dark paper. I think of all the tests I completed this one was the most surprising, all five colors, including the white pencil were incredibly opaque, with very little to no black paper showing through the pigment.
The Viviva Colorsheets are an absolutely fantastic concept, for the watercolor artist, out and about, the entire 16 range of watercolors fit in the back pocket of your Jeans. They are perfect for taking with you to a coffee shop along with your watercolor journal and paint the world as it passes you by.
In this review we take a look at the Staedtler Mars Lumograph Graphite Pencils and the Staedtler Mars Lumograph Black Carbon Pencils. I decided to review them both together as I wanted to test them both and give a detailed account as to how well or not, they performed side by side. Although they may appear the same they are in fact two different mediums and behave as such.
I think all in all, since Spectrum Noir upgraded the Brush tip on the Illustrator and Tri-Blend, these markers are among some of the finest brush tip markers artists can buy. This is an amazing thing as it takes away from the monopoly on the Japanese counterpart markers which have pretty much been the industry standard for such a long time,
I have reviewed the Castle Art Coloured Pencils before of which I personally loved them and considering their price point, are a wonderful set of pencils for coloured pencil artists of so many genres. I have also reviewed the Castle Art Graphite Sketch Set which I also really liked, again the low cost and wide range of tools supplies in the set makes the set very desirable.
On the back of the sleeve there is a color chart showing all the colors in the set that you have purchased. As well as the color chart, there is an explanation of the lightfast ratings they use along with the appropriate lightfast grade beside each pigment in the tin. This is incredibly helpful, meaning that you don’t have to go looking for this information online
I was incredibly intrigued about the pencils which I now know to have been the Faber Castell Black Edition, but as I have mentioned, at the time when I first was made aware of them, there really wasn’t a lot of information about them, at least in the UK. Initially I thought that the Faber Castell Gold Faber were the same pencils only released for the US, UK and European Community, but this was obviously not the case.
As always I have created some artwork with the Koh-I-Noor Progresso Aquarell to help demonstrate and display the strength of the pigments. As much as I love watercolors and watercolor products, I am not as comfortable with them as I am with my colored pencils and markers.
In the last few days, Medihealth1 aka Wally, has launched the newly anticipated Black Widow Monarch set of Colored Pencils. I was so fortunately to have a set sent to me for review as well as three extra sets which will be going to three lucky winners in a fee giveaway. As with all the giveaways I do, no matter where you live in the world you can take part, but I will explain the details further into the review.
The body of the Bruynzeel Expression pencil is wood based with the grain on display, however, although the barrel is clearly a wood barrel, and I know this is going to sound a bit weird, but there is a plastic feel to the barrel. It almost feels like the barrel is flexible which is clearly isn’t and when you sharpen the Bruynzeel Expression it does so incredibly smoothly.
