Holbein Colored Pencils

Love at first sight?

Almost.

In March of 2018, I ordered a set of 150 Holbein Colored Pencils from Amazon. The second it arrived, I picked out a Limepeel looking pencil and tested it.

A little bird landed on my shoulder, twittering a song just for me. Then a squirrel joined in with a happy little dance. The sun shone a brighter. My face felt warm and tingly.

Come to mamma, you sweet, sweet pencils!

Now three years later, I can finally recommend Holbein Colored Pencils to you.

Well… maybe.

Let’s look a little closer at Holbein Colored Pencils and whether they’re a good fit for you.

Holbein Colored Pencils are an artist-grade soft core pencil from Japan. They come in 150 highly pigmented colors— boxed sets and open stock. Professional Illustrator Amy Shulke shares why Holbein may be a smart purchase for serious colorers and artists, also who should avoid this trendy brand.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT A HOLBEIN SPONSORED POST. I PURCHASED HOLBEIN PENCILS WITH MY OWN MONEY. THIS IS AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW.

The Holbein Pencil Backstory

Chapter One: In which our heroine falls for the handsome rake…

Sorry, I lapsed into a bit of Jane Austen there.

Holbein pencils have been around for a while. I’d see them in art magazines, hear whispers about them in art groups.

But I held out on buying my first box because the only place you could get open stock replacements was Japan. I deliberately waited until a clever Japanese student started a resale service. He purchased open stocks locally and shipped internationally for a small fee.

I waited until I thought it was safe. Honest! Then about a month after I’d fallen head-over-heels for Holbeins, the resale service abruptly closed. Then the sets disappeared completely from Amazon US, Amazon Canada, and Amazon Mexico.

And I was stuck— a junkie without a dealer.

What was the problem?

Please understand, I have no connections to Holbein.

I emailed them several times and never got a response. And the Holbein website is terrible.

All I have is hearsay and scuttlebutt from other artists and the chatty owner of my local hole-in-the-wall art store.

Every country has different safety standards. Art supplies often get caught in the crossfire because beautiful colors are made from heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and other hazardous ingredients.

Current safety standards err on the side of caution to the point of stupidity. We don’t eat art supplies but the law assumes we might.

Anyway, it sounds like Holbein was forced to reformulate one or more pencil cores before they could export to the United States…

(Just in case you planned to use pencil shavings as an ice cream topping)

…And it sounds like Holbein pouted instead of changing quickly to meet demand.

So while Holbein twiddled their thumbs and ignored the US market, I kept quiet about my secret love.

I stayed silent for you, because what could you do if I recommended them? Hop a flight to Japan to buy pencils?

Actually, I almost asked someone to do this for me.

And I couldn’t use Holbeins in any project shared online because one of you would ask for supply info. What would you do? Buy them from the UK and pay almost twice the price?

Uhhhhh, yes, I kinda did that.

Anyway, the soap opera is now over.

Holbein Pencils are finally available in the United States!

More Colored Pencil Tips:

Don’t miss my previous colored pencil articles

What’s so great about Holbein Colored Pencils?

Remember, I’m an old-school pencil person.

I started back in 1985 with a set of Berol Prismacolors. Back then it was the only brand of artist-grade colored pencils available in art stores near me. Heck, they might have been the only artist-grade colored pencils in existence at the time.

Prismacolors have always been soft, buttery, and deliciously waxy.

But remember, not delicious in an ice cream topping kind of way.

I know, if you’re coming to me from the crafting or coloring book community, you just shivered.

Waxy? WAX??? But Amy! Wax based pencils are the work of the Devil!

No, that’s not true.

All colored pencils contain wax and all colored pencils contain oil.

It’s the ratio of wax to oil that changes from brand to brand.

Wax is not bad.

What’s bad is that so many people repeat the stupid idea that wax is bad.

In general, pencils with a higher oil to wax ratio are hard pencils. Pencils with more wax tend to be softer pencils. Wax, oil, hard, soft— it’s all about what you like. There are no villains here.

Holbein Colored Pencils are exactly the kind of pencil we soft pencil people have waited for.

Holbeins glide onto the paper and they lay down color very generously. There’s no fighting to get them to stick and they layer with amazing ease.

And all of this waxy goodness comes in a gorgeous, high quality pencil body. Holbeins are a chunky pencil with a fat core and a thick coating of lacquer paint on the outside. They’re luxurious to hold and beautiful to use.

If you love Prismacolor Premier pencils, you will love, love, love Holbein pencils.

Holbein feels like the grown-up, fancy, professional version of a Prismacolor.

The rest of this article contains affiliate links to trusted retailers like Blick.com, Violeta-Ink.com, and Amazon.com.

Vanilla Arts Co. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for use to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com.

Are soft colored pencils right for you?

So why do soft wax pencils get such a bad rap?

I cover some of this in my article defending Prismacolor pencils here.

But the short answer is: Extreme User Error. Many of the loudest complainers about wax are using waxy pencils wrong.

If you press hard, burnish a lot, and/or never seal your project with fixative spray, then you’re going to have issues with any soft, waxy style of pencil— not just Prismacolor but every brand of wax based pencil.

As I said, I love my pencils soft and buttery but that’s my personal preference. Soft pencils fit my style of coloring well.

But I don’t recommend soft pencils for everyone and I don’t recommend them for every project.

Match the pencil you use to the kind of art you want to create.

Do you work large, like 10 inches or more?

Do you cover large areas like backgrounds with deep color?

Do you color expansive landscapes?

Do you color portraits or anything which require smooth, texture-free color?

Do you color expressively with loose strokes?

Do you prefer to avoid solvents?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then soft waxy pencils are a probably a good match for you.

But if you color small images or do fiddly detail work, you likely need a firmer pencil.

Not a hard, crumbly, brittle pencil, but something oil based and stiffer. The firmer the pencil, the more control you’ll get from it.

And even soft colored pencil people often add a few firm pencils to their projects. I may color the leaf with soft Derwent Lightfast pencils but then add fine veins with a firm Caran d’Ache Pablo. And I frequently use Pablos to crisp up the edge of something that’s looking mushy in Prismacolor.

I know many of you have been told that Polychromos are the best brand of pencil on the market but that’s simply not true.

There is not one “best” brand of colored pencil.

Smart pencil artists use different brands for different tasks.

Are Holbein Colored Pencils available open stock in the US and Canada?

YES!

This is why I’m finally announcing that I use and love Holbein colored pencils.

I never recommend any art supply that is only available in sets or kits.

If you can’t renew, refill, or replace your favorite colors without buying a whole new set, then avoid that product— no matter how great the reviews.

Art supplies are expensive enough without having to buy 60 colors you don’t need just to get the one you do.

And now that Holbeins are available open stock, I’ll be able to use them in class projects, like Dagwood shown here.

What are “fat-based” colored pencils?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Holbein pencils are fat based? Huh? I’ve been using colored pencils for over 30 years and I never heard the term “fat based” until last month. Seriously.

Look, the Holbein website is terrible. I’m sure it’s a lovely Japanese site but the English version is a mishmash of badly translated blathering and utter nonsense.

The website says “wax, fats, and oils” and the rest of the coloring world is repeating this like it’s the New-New Testament.

Poppycock. I call shenanigans!

Here’s the direct quote:

It is the colored pencil that the lead kneaded with pigment, wax, fats and oils, etc. is dried and put in the thin central canal of an axial pencil frame of wood.

I’ve spent the bulk of my professional career illustrating for research and medical supply companies. I’m used to weeding my way through dense scientific jargon.

And folks, that ain’t jargon. That’s mush.

Waxes and oils are used as binders in colored pencils.

Oils are long chain molecules which means you can process oil into multiple products.

Wax is one of those products.

So honestly, I’ve never really understood why pencil people differentiate wax from oil because wax is made from oil.

And fat? Fat is oil. Fat tends to mean an animal by-product but folks, so is petrolium. Crude oil is really, really, really old fat.

So to say “wax, fats, and oils” is like saying “here’s my bike, bicycle, and my thingamabob with two wheels which I pedal around town.”

You’re rerunning a repeat of the replay. It’s gobbeldy-gook.

Holbein, like every other pencil in the world has some wax in it and some oil in it. They’re soft which means they’ve got more wax than oil.

But stop it with the fat, okay?

Do you need Holbein Pencils?

Okay, so let’s say you’re just like me.

You color big images — My Dagwood sandwich here is 12 inches tall

You color large areas and backgrounds. — Not in Dagwood but I usually do backgrounds

You color landscapes. — Yep!

You color things like skin which should not show texture. — Several items in Dagwood, like the hot dog bun, mustard drips, and cheeses needed to be smooth and seamless

You color expressively. — Like the scumbled toast texture on the top slice? Yep.

You currently use and love soft colored pencils like Prismacolor Premier, Luminance, and/or Derwent Lightfast. — Oh, yes!

You don’t use solvents, blenders, or mineral spirits.— I NEVER use solvents!

Should YOU replace your current soft pencils with Holbein Colored Pencils?

Should you add Holbein to your current pencil collection?

I’ve already waxed rhapsodic about Holbein pencils, so my answer here may sound counter-intuitive.

Honestly?

I do not recommend Holbein pencils for the average hobby level colorer.

Shocking. I know!

Here’s the reason: PRICE

Let’s look at Blick prices in March of 2021 as an example of what I mean:

A box of 150 Prismacolor Premier pencils retails for about $100. That’s 67 cents per pencil with open stock replacements around $1.35 each. Prismacolors are an artist grade pencil at an excellent price.

The Polychromos 120 set is $235. That’s $1.96 each, open stock replacements are $2.35. Personally, I don’t like Polychromos pencils but I can understand why a lot of people try them. They’re good pencils at a decent price.

But then the prices start to climb. Fast!

The Holbein 150 set is $425. That’s $2.83 each, open stocks at $3.95 each.

Derwent Lightfast 100 set is $280 at Blick and $272 at Violeta-Ink. That’s about $2.80 each, open stocks at $4.10.

The 76 set of Caran d’Ache Luminance is $234. That’s $3.07 each, open stocks at $4.71.

And there’s a problem with Derwent Lightfast and Caran d’Ache Luminance: Neither set is a full range of colors. I put both sets together in the same case and STILL end up supplementing them with several Prismacolors!

These aren’t the kind of prices I feel comfortable recommending to a beginner or hobby level colorer. Four bucks per pencil is crazy for casual coloring.

Holbein Colored Pencils are excellent pencils. I absolutely love them.

But wait until you’re serious about colored pencil at an artistic level to invest in them.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT A HOLBEIN SPONSORED POST. I PURCHASED HOLBEIN PENCILS WITH MY OWN MONEY. THIS IS AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW.

My observations on Holbein Colored Pencils

Let me give you my assessment of Holbein pencils. I’m a trained illustrator working professionally and teaching fine art techniques. I have used Holbeins for almost 3 years now.

This isn’t a true review. I’m not going to show you a million swatches and I’m not demonstrating Holbeins the way most art supply reviewers do.

Frankly, I’m not a big fan of Unboxing reviews; you can read why here.

This is just my list of pros and cons after long time use of Holbein Colored Pencils.

Holbein Exteriors:

Holbein Pencils feel luxurious and weighty in your hand. They’re a large diameter pencil with an oversized core. Comparable in diameter and weight to Polychromos.

Holbein bodies are fully coated with a gloss lacquer giving them an almost a silky feel. It’s very nice and not as slippery as I expected.

Holbein uses metallic gold to mark all of the pencils which is hard on aging eyes, especially when the pencil is beige or yellow. Fortunately, the font is large. I do end up rolling the pencil to read it, especially when my studio work lights are on.

Holbein uses a star system to indicate lightfast ratings but the scale isn’t standard. Holbein uses a their own testing scale which doesn’t translate to other pencil brands. Three stars is the most lightfast and 1 star is the least. I have no idea if 1 star means the color fades overnight or if 1 star means it will last 100 years but not 200 or 300. Who knows? For what it’s worth, every pencil carries 1, 2, or 3 stars right next to the color name.

The names make sense, something that can’t be said about all colored pencils. They use paint names when appropriate but also name colors after food, flowers, or recognizable objects. I’ve not noticed any weirdly wrong names.

Hey Copic? The entire world expects a “Bronze” marker to be brown because actual bronze is brown, not blue-green!

I’ve never noticed a large discrepancy between the color of the paint and the color of the core.

Hello, Derwent? Are you listening? We really like accurate paint indicators!

Sharpening Holbeins:

Holbein come pre-sharpened… kinda. They’re sharpened to a shallow point but not enough to actually put a real point on the end— the tippy-tip is quite flat which makes the sharpening is completely useless. Be prepared to spend time sharpening the entire set before coloring.

Holbein sharpens easily and I’ve never had any deep checks or splinters in the wood.

Holbein can be sharpened to a long fine point but be prepared for a little bit at the tip to fall off with the first strokes.

I sharpen in an electric X-Acto School Pro. For hand sharpening, try the KUM Long Point.

Because Holbeins come pre-sharpened and the other end has paint on it, I can’t easily tell if any cores are off-center. However, off-center cores usually reveal themselves as you sharpen and I’ve never had a wonky core yet.

Holbein Cores:

Holbeins are a soft-core pencil and the exposed core will break off if you drop the pencil onto a hard floor.

My studio floor is laminate wood and the pencils bounce several times when dropped but I’ve never experienced a core shattering inside the pencil casing in multiple spots. This is quite common with Prismacolors.

One pencil in my initial box should have never passed inspection. The core was bubbled like swiss cheese with open pockmarks. I sharpened it several inches and the defect runs through the entire pencil. Holbein did not respond to my email about this issue.

IMPORTANT: If you’re someone who can’t stand to sharpen pencils because you hate wasting pencil lead— DO NOT BUY HOLBEIN PENCILS! I have never blown through this much pencil length with any other brand. These pencils disappear fast!

Yes, I know some of you will advise not to use an electric sharpener because they often eat pencils. Thank you, but I’d wear my hands out hand sharpening with as much as I color. I’ve chosen a controlled electric machine with an auto stop feature. It’s not the sharpener, it’s the pencil.

Holbein Color Range:

I was initially intrigued by Holbein being a soft-core pencil but what sold me was the color range. They have the most complete color range I’ve ever seen. Most professional pencil artists use a combination of several sets to fulfill their color needs but I could easily use nothing but the Holbein 150 set and never feel lacking.

Holbein segregates their pencils between Pastel Tones and Assorted Tones.

• the Pastel Tones are all dense, opaque, and extra-creamy with a slight pearlescent sheen.

• the Assorted Tones are a combination of opaque and translucent colors. The opaques feel a bit soapy and the translucents are more slick.

Holbein offers 2 blacks; I can’t tell the difference. Both are fairly dense but I’m not a good judge of black because I rarely use it. See my video here for why.

Holbein offers 2 whites, one “White” and one “Soft White”. Soft white does not mean beige. The Soft White core is physically softer and soapier in feel, similar to Derwent’s Chinese White Drawing Pencil. Holbein white is dense with a hint of translucency like Prismacolor White. I strongly recommend all four white pencils mentioned in this paragraph.

Holbein makes 6 warm and 6 cool grays. All are helpfully marked as Gray 1-6 with 1 being the lightest and 6 the darkest. It’s wonderfully logical.

Hello, Derwent? Are you listening? Is your gray “Mist” cooler than “Moonstone”? Why do you vex me so?

Holbein offers about 18 browns and beiges which run from warm red browns to cool chocolate umbers. A nice selection.

They make a complete range of pinks and magentas plus a beautiful selection of reds with no overlaps or missing values.

The yellows to orange are the fewest in number and the least impressive with a few colors that are pretty darned close to each other.

Holbein Greens are the best I’ve ever seen. Greens are why I initially wanted Holbeins! There’s a full selection of values in several green families— olive, chartreuse, kelly, sage, viridian, and turquoise… they cover every color of green I’ve ever wanted.

Normally pencil companies try to impress you with a ton of blues. Holbein keeps their blue family smaller than usual (they gave that space to the greens!) but I don’t see any missing blues. The blues they offer are all unique tones and values. A nice selection of periwinkles too!

Purple is a small family but I see both cool violets and warmer purples in 4-5 values each.

I highly recommend Holbein for portrait artists. With the large range of browns, pinks, pale blue-violets, and celadon greens, they give you everything you need for realistic skin and skin underpainting for any ethnicity.

I highly recommend Holbein for floral artists. Their greens and pinks are by far the most complete and the natural yellow greens are very organic looking.

FOR VANILLA STUDENTS: Holbein makes their own version of many of our favorite Prismacolors including: Indigo, Dark Purple, White, Cream, Limepeel, Olive, Prussian Green, Carmine, Muted Turquoise, Slate Grey, Greyed Lavender, Yellowed Orange, and Goldenrod.

Holbein Lay-down:

I’ve seen Holbein described as “just like Polychromos”. Huh? Someone’s been eating their pencils again because Holbeins don’t work like Polychromos. Holbeins are softer, slicker, and the color is much more dense than Polys.

Holbein opaques are so dense that they often look a muted in comparison to their translucent colors. I’ve never noticed dullness in the finished product.

Because so many Holbeins are opaque, you do need to worry about creating accidental clouding or masking while layering over existing layers of color.

Holbein tend to shed core debris as you use them. Use glassine paper below your hand and dust the paper frequently to keep the margins clean.

Holbeins are intensely pigmented, even the translucents are highly colored.

Holbein pigment tends to sit high on the surface of the paper and it doesn’t seem to settle and sink into the tooth the way Prismacolor, Lightfast, and Luminance do. Because of this, it’s essential that you seal your Holbein work with good quality fixative when you’re finished.

Because the pigment sits high on the paper, it’s incredibly easy to erase Holbein layers, sometimes by accident. Follow my eraser technique described here but understand that in most cases, you won’t need more than the sticky tack.

I’ve honestly never found the ideal substrate (paper) to use with Holbeins. I use light pressure and prefer to layer, I don’t burnish. With Holbein, I often end up filling in specific toothy spots that have been missed. This is something that rarely happens to me with other brands. The Dagwood project here was colored on Vellum Bristol (Strathmore 500 series) and it’s toothier than I envisioned.

Like Prismacolor, Holbein leaves little blobs or pigment balls when used on toothless paper.

Holbein is not a good pencil for X-Press It Blending Card. The least bit of pressure variation can create ugly visible stroke marks which are not easily softened. Try a toothier marker cardstock.

Where can you find Holbein Colored Pencils?

In the United States, there is currently only one AUTHORIZED retailer for Holbein Colored Pencils.

Dick Blick or Blick.com

Please exercise caution when buying from unathorized retailers or resellers. You may not be getting authentic merchandise, guaranteed quality, or pristine pencils in new condition.

We will update this area as more retailers are authorized.

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Dagwood

Artistic Coloring Kits are everything you need to challenge yourself with intermediate to advanced level images.

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Kit includes: digital stamp, suggested supply list, photo references, guide to shade and shadow & underpainting advice, color map & coloring process tips & photo collage

Select Products used in Dagwood:

Vanilla Arts Company is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for use to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com.