Amy teaches with Prismacolor and recommends that all beginners start with Prismacolor’s artist grade pencils. More expensive pencils may not be worth the investment for your coloring needs!

Wax-based Prismacolor pencils are very reasonably priced and they have the most complete color palette of any colored pencil brand. Later, if upgrade to another brand, you'll still find yourself coming back to Prismacolor for specific colors.

Wait to upgrade until you understand what style of high-end pencil matches your hand anatomy, your style, the size of your average project, and your subject matter. Upgrading too early can lead to wasted money.

For more Prismacolor info see article here.

Please make sure you’re purchasing Prismacolor Premier and not one of the many other styles Prismacolor makes. We do not recommend Prismacolor Verithin, Scholar, or Col-Erase versions.

Prismacolors is a division of Newell Brands, an American company. The production factory is in Mexico.

Amy teaches with Derwent Lightfast Pencils in some advanced classes. Lightfast pencils are oil-based and can be used interchangeably with Prismacolor Premier when the colors match.

As of 2021, Derwent makes 100 colors but this number is deceiving. Many of the colors are incredibly similar and the set is mostly dark colors. There are giant holes in the color palette with no pinks, few reds, and only one orange.

It would be hard to color an entire project with only Derwent lightfast. As a result, Amy has combined her Lightfast set with her Luminance set. Together, they make a more complete selection but she still falls back on Prismacolor Premier to provide pinks, reds, orange, and some greens.

For more Derwent Lightfast info see article here.

Derwent Lightfast are still relatively new and are more expensive than Prismacolor. They are made in the United Kingdom.

Holbein pencils are from Japan and are a high quality wax-based pencil. If you do not like the soft feel of Prismacolor, you will not enjoy the feel of Holbein which are softer.

Holbein were recently reintroduced back to the US and Canada after several years of being completely unavailable. As of 2021, Dick Blick is the only retailer for North America.

Amy does not recommend Holbein for beginners but they can be used in any of her advanced classes.

Holbein divides their 150 colors into 2 groups: Pastel and Assorted. It is important to mark the Pastel pencils as they behave differently than the darker and more transparent colors in the Assorted collection.

Read Amy’s article about Holbein here and read her article about companion pencil sets here.

Luminance pencils are made by the Caran d’Ache company out of Switzerland. They’re frequently referred to as “The World’s Most Expensive Colored Pencils” but it feels like this is either bragging by people who own them or an excuse by folks who don’t.

Amy does not recommend Luminance for beginners but they would be an excellent first addition when you upgrade.

The Luminance color palette is extremely limited (only 74 colors) but everything is incredibly high quality with excellent lightfast ratings.

Luminance are wax-based pencils and Amy combines them freely with Prismacolor. Many Luminance colors have the buttery, slick feel of a waxy pencil while other colors are gritty and almost crunchy feeling. The feel takes some getting used to.

For an example of a Luminance + Prismacolor project, see Amy’s article here.

Like Luminance pencils, Pablo Colored Pencils are made by the Caran d’Ache company out of Switzerland. They’re much more affordably priced than Luminance pencils.

Amy does not recommend coloring any project solely with Pablo pencils. They’re a very firm oil-based formula and as such are better for drawing and details than filling in areas with smooth color.

Amy uses Pablos primarily as a clean-up pencil, sharpening edges and adding details to projects colored with other brands of pencil (especially Holbein). She recommends buying the entire box because when used this way, you match the Pablo pencil to the colors you’ve created by layering several pencils rather than matching a Pablo to each pencil used. You’ll need the full set to find exact matches.

Read about Pablo pencils in Amy’s article about companion pencil sets here.