Recently, I added adult colouring to my activities. In my quest to master blending, burnishing and water drops I have watched utube videos, read multiple product reviews, then purchased many pencil crayons, books, markers, pastel chalks and gel pens. These coloured pencils (pencil crayons Canada) were purchased from Amazon.ca in the largest set available.
Prisma Color Premier - 150 colours manufactured in Mexico ($.90 each). They blend wonderfully and lay down colour very well. Their biggest drawback is they are fragile, the lead tips break easily, sometimes the core is not in the centre or broken all the way down.
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor - 72 colours manufactured in Germany ($1.06 each). These pencils are light, thinner than the others. Lyra are oil based.
Raffiné Marco - 72 colours, manufactured in China ($.45 each). Hexagon shaped which I love using. Raffiné are oil based.
Derwent Coloursoft - 72 colours, manufactured in England ($1.47 each). Bigger colour core, they sharpen easily, no breakage at all. They are a wax based.
Marco Raffiné does not have the names of the colour printed on the pencil. I could not find a list from the manufacturer with the names either. The colour chart above was printed then coloured with my pencils.
I like them all. The Prisma colours are rich and vibrant, as are the Derwent. The Derwent are not fragile, but Prisma has more than double the colour selection.
Side by side it is hard to tell the difference between Prisma and Derwent on paper. They both lay colour down beautifully and blend well.
The Raffiné Marco in top left hand quarter, the Lyra Rembrandt in bottom right hand quarter. These are the oil based colour pencils. They both require more effort for blending. I did not use any solvent. The oil based pencils are fabulous. The colours are not quite as vibrant, but they lay down so nicely. Both the thinner light Lyra pencils and the hexagon shaped Raffiné are a joy to use. They feel really nice in my hand. My only complaint with the Raffinés is no colour name on the pencil. I have no cons with the Lyra Rembrandts.
The snowflakes were coloured white, the paper is light cream colour, but it is still difficult to see the white.
This picture was coloured using all four sets and Staedtler pastel chalks for the background.
The fairies were coloured with Prisma Color Premier, Hilroy and Staedler triangular pencils.
The fish drinking wine is Derwent, Lyra and Raffiné Marco pencil crayons.
The vase of flowers is a combination of pencil crayon brands.
My conclusion is that we can never have two many pencil crayons. The biggest bang for the buck are the Raffiné Marcos. Most colour selection is Prisma Color Premier. It is like machine embroidery thread, the more colour choices and brands the better.
If there is a drawback here it would be that my adult colouring is interfering with quilting and playing the piano.
