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.
Quite a while ago I completed a review of the Art-N-Fly alcohol markers and the colored pencils that they make, however, I noticed that not long after the review that I got one or two things a bit confused. In relation to the actual markers and their quality, nothing at all has changed, it is more to do with the sets available than anything else.
Although the pencils are called woodless, they do have a very thin protective sheath covering the barrel, so essentially the pencil is all core or pigment for want of a better term. Unfortunately, due to this thin protective sheath covering the barrel, you are unable to use the side of the pencil, similarly to the way you would typically use a pastel block or cylinder.
Throughout this list, there are some luxury items however I have tried to ensure that there are some really affordable yet desirable items. We all have different levels of disposable income and if anyone is aware of that it is me, so I am always conscious when compiling these Christmas lists that there needs to be affordable items present but they also need to be excellent quality and something your loved one is actually going to want.
The other two lists are more product based, however over the past few years, I have purchased quite a few art books to help me refine my own artistic skills and to also better my knowledge for the sake of my reviews. All of the books in this list I have personally read myself and can 100% vouch for them and I have even reviewed one or two of them on The Art Gear Guide much more in-depth. So, let’s get on with the list and hopefully you will see a book in here that might appeal to your artistic thirst for knowledge.
Essentially the Caran d’Ache Pencil Peeler is a horse shoe shaped, stainless steel product. The stainless steal part of the device is the handle and the means of actually holding the razor blade in place, thus allowing the artists to safely use it on any pencil like product.
Conté is a huge name in the art world and in particular pastels, they provide both pastel pencils and pastel sticks, which a just rectangular sticks of pure pastel pigment. I will be conducting a pastel pencil comparison at some point as there is quite a variety pastel pencils and pastels in general, so a comparison video would be an excellent way to highlight the differences.
This year however I have done it a little bit different, I have completed two lists, a realistic affordable list and a Luxury Art Christmas list. Lets face it, not everyone is as penniless as me and so as Christmas is a time for extravagance and one off indulgences, I thought that a luxury Christmas list was a good idea; so here goes.
The first thing I noticed about the Uni No. 888 Colored Pencils when I started to use them was their very light feel. I was unable to find out what wood the company use for their pencils, but this might have something to do with their very light feel in the hand. I know this sounds odd given we are talking about a pencil and in the grand scheme of things how heavy can a pencil be?
A while ago I seen a fantastic colored pencil artist use a battery operated eraser, which so many of us colored pencil enthusiasts know about and love, however this product was slightly different. As I have mentioned, most colored pencil artists will have a battery eraser in their tool set, this is not a tool for getting rid of mistakes, but rather for helping the artist to create certain effects within their art.
In this article I must let you know right from the get go that this is not really a review or comparison of the pencils performance. I have already completed a comparison review of the Derwent Lightfast and the Care d’Ache Luminance coloured pencils, however, when I completed my comparison it was when Derwent had only released the Lightfast 36 set.
One of the questions I am asked the most, outside of review questions, is what supplies I personally use and if I could show people my supplies. So I have completed a more recent review of my desk and the supplies that I use when I get the time to sit down and draw something that I want to draw.
This year, 2019, Derwent released a new range of 12 metallic pencils. The set displayed the same colours, which I will explore further into the review, however, the pencil was completely reformatted, new ingredients, new external look to the pencil but more importantly, the pigments are most definitely metallic
Etchr have a few carry systems among their product range and after testing and reviewing the Slate Satchel, I really wanted to review the smallest in their range, the Etchr Fieldcase. The Fieldcase is a little bit like a conventional pencil case that you would find in any stationary store
The Caran d’Ache Prismalo are marketed as a student grade water soluble set of pencils, so it is important to test and view them with this in mind. One of the first things I done was to complete a swatch and as I completed the swatch, I watched the pigment disperse and started to compare to other student grade water
Around this time last year, Derwent released their brand new Lightfast pencil and it was met with amazing reviews from so many colored pencil artists. However, at the time Derwent announced the release of these outstanding pencils, they mentioned a 12 set, 24 set, 36 set, 48 set and 72 set with rumours of a 100 set being released
The ink quality inside the Arteza Everblend markers is absolutely fantastic, there is no blotchiness at all which can sometimes occur with the cheaper lesser quality inks. As always I completed a piece of art work to help demonstrate the markers.
I completed my usual testing on the pencils, layering and blending; from the images below you can see that the layering with the Rijks Museum pencils was excellent. Blending also was excellent and as previously mentioned, I completed this test both dry and using odourless mineral spirits.
A short while ago I asked the question on social media, “If anyone wanted me to do a Copic Marker review?”. Quite a lot of people said yes and a few said no, for the same reasons I was initially hesitant, as so many artists have completed Copic Marker Reviews.
