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Hey, if I haven’t said so before, welcome to Vanilla Beans.

I’m kinda changing how I do things here in the newsletter.

Don’t worry, you’ll still get your Saturday dose of color theory, tips, and sarcasm but instead of banging my head on the desk every week for a topic I haven’t written about in the last nine years…

Yes, that’s how long Beans has been going…

Anyway, I’ve been pouring my soul into the weekly YouTube videos and here in Beans I’ll do the addendum—

Watch the video if you haven’t, then meet me below to read the tangential part that somehow got edited out.

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NEW VIDEO

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VIDEO RESOURCE PAGE

WHITE OUT

**NEW IN THE FREE DOWNLOAD LIBRARY**
My Frequent Color List: This isn’t a buying guide or a recommended list, it’s simply an overview of the colors I use most.

Access the download library here

CURRENT PASSWORD: RubberDuckie

In today’s video, I briefly show a list of my most used colored pencil colors.

And actually, it’s not just colored pencils. I gravitate towards using these same colors in a wide variety of media. My watercolor palette looks strikingly similar to this. If you look at my old box of pastels or tubes of oil paint, these same colors have seen the most action.

This is why the list is not brand specific. The actual printable has common names for each color but it’ll vary from brand to brand.

Artists always do this gravitation thing. Over time, we develop a “Core” group of colors.

These aren’t my favorite colors. It’s a glimpse at how my brain works. These are the colors I know I can use to create the colors I see in the world around me.

Your core list will look different because you don’t think like I do.

This is why I say it’s not a buying guide. You could rush out and buy all these colors today and not know what to do with them…

Ah-ha!

This is the reason for the Video Addendum.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll explain why I use what I use.

In case you couldn’t tell from the title of today’s Beans, our topic this week is white.

The most common white I use is the white of the paper.

And yes, I do leave areas of the paper uncolored to create white zones. We call this “reserving the white”.

Reserving is common in watercolor but we also do it in markers…

(because they don’t make white Copics)

And in colored pencil

(because white pencils aren’t opaque enough to cover over and block the color below).

But actually, the reservation technique I use the most is simply to ease off of whatever pencil I’m using to create a lighter version of that pencil color.

So most of the gray you see in my projects was colored with a dark gray pencil but I let lots of white tooth show through to create a lighter gray.

More on why I do this in an upcoming issue of Beans.

Anyway, coloring lightly and letting the tooth show through is my most common use of white.

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After the reserve technique, my second most common white is Prismacolor Premier Soft Core #PC938.

Please make sure it’s “Premier” and the number starts with PC. If you’re missing either of those identifiers, then you’re dealing with a student grade version of Prismacolor and the student grade whites are terrible.

This puppy here is the best white colored pencil on the market. Even picky artists who hate Prismacolor still love this pencil and mix it with their preferred brand.

Other companies make white colored pencils and some are more expensive, but Prismacolor is the most opaque.

I buy these pencils in boxes of 12 and I go through about 2 boxes per year.

It’s that good.

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The most opaque white pencil on the market is the Stabilo All Pencil.

Wait, didn’t I just say Prismacolor is the most opaque white colored pencil?

Yes I did. That’s correct.

See, the Stabilo is a pencil and this pencil is white but that doesn’t make it a colored pencil.

The Stabilo is actually designed for use in welding studios. It writes on smooth surfaces like glass or metal and it’s water soluble so it rinses right off after you’re done with whatever industrial thing you’re doing.

Sound like a colored pencil to you? I thought not.

This pencil is not only exxxtremely opaque, it’s also got super sticking powers.

Applied directly to naked paper, the Stabilo doesn’t look like much, but if you’ve got 6 layers of pencil down and now you decide you need a white highlight in that spot? This pencil is da man!

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And because nothing ever makes sense in Amyland, here’s another white pencil that’s more opaque than a Prismacolor.

This is the Derwent Drawing Pencil in Chinese White.

No, it’s not a colored pencil. See the word “Drawing” in the title? That’s a clue.

The other clue, and it’s one you really can’t miss, is that this pencil is freakishly soft. You know the old bars of Ivory Soap they’ve been making since the late 1400’s? Put it into pencil form and this is what you’ll get.

You can literally leave fingerprints in the core of this pencil. It’s THAT soft!

I used to use the heck out of this pencil, it’s soft and sticks to almost anything. Now I use the Stabilo instead.

Why?

Because “Chinese White” isn’t white. You can call it creamy or beige but really, it’s downright yellow in some situations.

See? Nothing makes sense in Amyland.

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Holbein White OP500 (note rounded end)

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Holbein White OP501 (note flat end)

Honorable mention goes to the Holbein Whites. Even if you roll your eyes at the price of a set of Holbeins, the whites are worth purchasing open stock and working into your current pencil set.

500 White is a standard white pencil. A little more sticky and a little less opaque than Prismacolor White.

501 Soft White is the same color but a soapier, softer formula like the Stabilo and Derwents above. Just like them, the Soft White sticks to multiple layers of pencil when Prismacolor won’t.

And there you go, these are the white pencils you’ll see me using in classes and videos.

Next week, we’ll talk about the black and gray pencils on my Core List.

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