Vanilla Beans: Muggles
Last week, we talked about the many duplicates in the large sets of inexpensive colored pencils. This week, let’s see if there’s any magic in the box…
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I know spring technically started back in March…
But Easter seems like a better beginning.
Although I do remember my mother making me wear a turtle neck under my new Easter sundress— more than once. Why did she always buy thin or sleeveless dresses for Michigan Easters????
Anyway, my apologies to those who live down south or anyone who’s been experiencing spring for a while now.
Call me crazy but I just can’t get excited about coloring tulips and daffodils until the temps are consistently over 32 degrees.
I purchase most of my art supplies from Dick Blick. Shop using my affiliate link to support this free newsletter.
We’re back with another item on our big list, the Characteristics of a Quality Colored Pencil.
There’s more to this list than you expected, eh?
Last Saturday, we talked about duplicates. We don’t need four blue pencils, close enough to be basically interchangeable.
This week, let’s do some magic.
Muggles
We all love the enchanted rainbow inside a new box of pencils. So many colors. So much potential. You can’t wait to swatch ‘em all.
But the truth is, not every pencil is a winner.
Some pencils are simply amazing.
And others?
Well…
<sigh>
The trick is to pay attention, before you waste any money.
Is this box filled with magic or is it mostly muggles?
What do these projects have in common? It’s probably not what you think.
Give up?
All three illustrations were shaded with the same pencil. The shade on the golden doughnut, the shade on the red watermelon, the shade deep inside the allium globe— it’s all the same color from the same pencil.
But it doesn’t look like it, right?
Ahhh, that’s because I used a magic pencil.
Meet Prismacolor Dark Purple and its twin from the Derwent Lightfast set. Same color, different formula, but basically interchangeable.
These purple pencils are made from 100% pure magic.
If you haven’t taken one of my classes yet, or if you have but it was a long time ago and you’ve long forgotten the lesson…
My classes run on magic pencils.
What’s a magic pencil?
Simple, it’s transparent.
I do 99.999% of my shading with a transparent or semi-transparent pencil.
Why?
Because magic pencils are chameleons.
When I use Purple over golden brown, it makes dark brown. Over red, it makes dark red. Over purple… well, that one’s a no brainer.
One magic pencil can shade almost anything because the transparency allows the base color below to shine through.
Magic Purple isn’t the only magic color. Indigo Blue is magic. Prussian Green is magic. Tuscan Red is magic.
There’s a ton of magic colors in a Prismacolor box. Holbein has a lot. Luminance has some excellent ones. Polychromos is mostly magic. Derwent Lightfast is almost all magic.
A quality set of pencils should be at least 40% magic. Even better if there’s more.
But remember that cheap set we’ve been looking at for weeks now?
I see 12.
Only 12 magic pencils in a set of 72? Uh oh, folks. That ain’t good.
“Now wait a minute Amy. How can you tell if a pencil is magic without swatching it?”
Simple.
Remember last week, when I told you to stop looking at the paint on the body of the pencil?
I said you’d see more if you only look at the core?
Well, once you start looking at just the cores, you start to notice something strange.
This row has 4 magic pencils. The rest are muggles.
See the two on the left edge? See the other two on the right edge? They’re magic.
Probably… I’m not totally sure if both blacks are actually magic. I bet one is and one isn’t.
Put your hand over the paint and focus on the core. If it’s hard to tell exactly what color it is, then it’s transparent. Maybe you could call it “blueish” or “blackish” but you wouldn’t be shocked if we swatched one and found it was teal or even dark purple.
Magic pencils have cores of debatable hue.
It’s much easier to tell the muggle cores. They scream their color, right?
You can even tell how light or dark they are. Muggles keep no secrets.
If the core is mysterious, it’s got some magic.
If you haven’t put two and two together yet…
Magic pencils are expensive to produce.
The pigment component is always the most expensive part of a colored pencil. On top of that, not many pigments are potent enough to make transparent pencils.
Magic costs money.
Meanwhile you can take any ol’ color, dump a ton of chalk fillers into the recipe, and make a ton of pencils for pennies.
And remember, they sometimes dye the chalk, eliminating the pigment costs entirely.
What you can’t do is make the filler transparent.
You can’t make magic with chalk.
Now sometimes we need a good muggle.
If you’re highlighting, nothing but a muggle will do. We do this a lot in my classes. Someone always tries it with a sheer color and wonders why their highlights don’t show up.
And when it comes to white, we all want the most opaque pencil on the market.
I’m not sure if you realize it, but all the pastel pencil sets which are trendy right now? I think it started with Holbein’s Pastel set, then the Asian knock-off factories started pumpin’ ‘em out?
Pastel pencil sets are 100% muggle. Opaque can be a good thing.
So I’m not saying you want a box full of nothing but magic.
It goes deeper than that.
This is a set of 72 pencils.
They wasted 2 spaces with metallics. They wasted more space giving you doppelganger colors.
Today we see that 60 of them are opaque because they’re filled with filler. These pencils will never shade properly.
And of the 12 magics they gave us?
Look closely.
Every magic pencil in this set, every freakin’ one of them has a duplicate sitting right next to it. So its really 6 magic pencils and 6 wasted spaces.
I’m getting angry just typing this.
Folks, this set is a best seller on Amazon and it’s not one of the cheapest either!
Just based on this rainbow alone, before we even touch a pencil…
Do you really think this company gives a flyin’ fudge about quality, usability, and value?
Grrrrrrr!
We’ll take a break from the rainbow for the next test.
Here’s the Pencil Quality Test so far:
Is this pencil available openstock?
Is the laydown thick, smooth, and generous?
Is the pencil hard or soft?
Are there pointless colors in the box?
Are there warm and cool versions of every major hue?
How many repeats and near-repeats are in the box?
How many magic pencils are in the box?
IF YOU LIKED TODAY’S ARTICLE, SUPPORT FUTURE FREE LESSONS
THIS WEEK IN COLOR
CURRENT PASSWORD: RubberDuckie
NEW IN THE WORKSHOP
I moved some expired Color Wonk projects over to the Workshop as Forever Access courses. Click the pic for more info.
A trio of intermediate warm-weather projects
Do you twist ‘em open or bite right in?
Strawberries and hazelnut spread… yum!
COLORED PENCILS WITH A BALANCE OF MAGIC AND MUGGLES
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