Quick overview of the superb Caran D’ache ranges of pencils.
Caran D’ache provides a great range of materials for drawing and painting. This brief summary is a simple guide to the ‘Pencil’ ranges available.
To distinguish the quality of the products – items are classified as Student or Artist quality. While both are very high quality the ‘Artists’ products are made from more expensive / better materials. For example, using natural pigments rather than synthetic.
Pencils can also be classified by whether they are ‘Permanent’ or ‘Water Soluble’. Permanent means that the pigment is not water soluble – so, wetting the pigment once on the paper will not cause any movement of the pigment.
Water Soluble Pencil ranges available include:
Swisscolor
a student quality, soft pencil coming in a range of tins starting at roughly £15 for a set of 12 pencils.
Supracolor
a softer, artist quality pencil with better pigment than the Swisscolor and starting at roughly £20 for a set of 12 pencils. Gadsby’s also sell this range of pencils individually.
Prismalo
hard leaded artist quality pencils, great for detail work, similar to the Supracolor in pigment but with harder lead. Again, these start at around £20 for a set of 12.
Museum
These are artist quality pencils which are actually ‘water colour in a pencil’ rather than water soluble lead. They are very, very soft. These start at roughly £24 for a set of 12 and are sold individually at Gadsby’s.
The Permanent Pencil ranges available include:
There are no Student quality permanent pencils from Caran D’ache. They are all Artist quality
Pablo
Like Supracolor in the water soluble range these pencils are very soft and have great pigment quality. Also, like the Supracolor, they start at roughly £20 for a tin of 12 and are sold individually.
Luminance
These are very creamy soft, beautifully quality pigmented pencils. They are the equivalent of the Museum range of water soluble pencils. The start at roughly £3.50 each.
Pastel Pencils
If you enjoy using pastels, or want to try them for the first time then the Pastel Pencil range is a great way to start. Starting in price at about £3.50 each they are slightly harder than a normal pastel stick and like a pencil they can be sharpened.
Have a look at a list containing many of the art & crafts brands / product ranges which Gadsby’s stock.
