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CARAN d’ACHE
Imported from Geneva in Switzerland, Caran d’Ache Pencils are marketed in a range of individual brands.
Caran d’Ache are one of the newer brands in Europe having been founded in 1915 as a manufacturer of writing instruments.
They have built up a strong reputation for quality in the years since.
The Company produce a wide range of art media and continue to develop new lines.
The oil based dry point pencil is branded ‘PABLO’ and comes in 120 colours with a
good selection of natural shades -
They tend to be more expensive than other brands across the board and distribution around the UK is not evenly spread.
They may not be easy to find, but as a Landscape Artist, This brand tends to be the first box I go to for landscape subjects as the colour range suits my style of work and the pencils handle well.
To see the Penciltopics standard chart of the Pablo colour range -
There is a very good ‘all rounder’ in the Caran d’Ache brands in ‘SUPRACOLOR SOFT’, a soluble pencil with a soft feel which works well both as a dry point and an aquarelle. This also has the same 120 colours as Pablo.
If you could only afford one good full set with a wide number of options, this brand would be a good choice.
One good point with the Supracolor pencils is the fact that when the dry pigment is wet, the colour becomes more intense (in common with all aquarelles ) but this brand has very little colour shift so the colour you put down remains the colour you wanted.
The Supracolor make a very good choice as a dry pencil too.
Single replacement pencils are readily available over the internet.
There will be a colour chart of the full colour range for Supracolor completed from the actual pencils. This will be posted on the site in due course and will also show the effect of adding water to the dry colour. In the meantime you can refer to the Pablo chart which is valid for Supracolor used dry.
One of the newer brands in the collection is ‘LUMINANCE 6901’ the number relates to the American ASTMS standard for lightfastness.
This is a dry point wax based pencil with a high pigment level which has been 2 years in development. It first came on sale in the UK during 2008. All the colours are lightfast, but the set of 76 colours has 38 Brights ( reds yellows blues etc ) and 38 Earth colours, many of which come in twins or triplets of shades of the same colour, so you don’t actually get 76 unique colours. The idea of having two or three shades of a colour is helpful to the artist, however, and the collection is a good one.
The recommended retail price (RRP) for Luminance is around twice that of other quality pencils so there will be some sales resistance because of the cost. They retail at around £2.30 per pencil, RRP, but there are offers from time to time which are worth taking up. Single pencils are available to replace used ones. The white Luminance is possibly the softest and best white dry point pencil I have come across and it will keep on working long after other brands have given up. Most useful for highlights and when working on black or dark papers.
I don’t try to use other brands on top of Luminance, though.
Overall, very good soft wax pencils, but expensive.
LIGHTFASTNESS
As at August 2010 the position over lightfastness in coloured pencils has been complicated by the withdrawal of the Prismacolor lightfast range and the fact that the only other brand meeting ASTMS 6901 are the Talens Van Gogh pencils, now marketed as part of the Sakura group and whilst still available, are only currently sold in sets. ( Aug 2010 ). Cretacolour coloured pencils from Austria meet the terms of ASTMS D4303 which is not the same but a similar ASTMS Lightfastness Test done on the pigments rather than the pencils
If you wish to buy pencils that meet an ASTMS standard for non fading, then the choice is either Luminance, Cretacolour or a careful selection from the ranges of other manufacturers by reference to their detailed charts, avoiding low rated colours.
This reduced competition makes the position of Caran d’Ache very much stronger.
For the colour range of Luminance, see the standard colour chart of the whole set completed from the actual pencils
Also in the Swiss range are NEOCOLOR . These are solid wax crayons in a wide range
of colours and can be used with the pencils. NEOCOLOR 1 are non-
NEOCOLOR 2 -
For those who like a fine pointed, hard colour Aquarelle pencil, Caran d’Ache Prismalo is still available.
This is an old line, but still useful. Price wise they are less costly than the lines shown above and they are available through Great Art at about the same prices as Lyra lines.
Other pencil brands from Caran d’Ache include the Museum line which has a range of 24 highly water soluble ‘leads’ which fit in a propelling pencil holder. The colour range is said to be lightfast to a high standard though I don’t have data. This product has an advantage for those unable to sharpen pencils easily and though the colour range is limited, the basic colours are there and being soluble, there is the ability to mix colours which are not represented. For most people, though, this line would be an expensive option compared to traditional wood cased pencils.
In 2011, The Company have launched a blender/burnisher for colour pencils based on the colourless core of the luminance brand.
This is a woodfree stick of solid material which can be sharpened in a blade sharpener and is very effective for blending laid down colour from wax and oil based pencils. The sticks are sold as the Full Blender Bright in packs of two sticks 17cm long, and can also be used to glaze over artwork and are said to protect against UV light
Availability of Caran d’Ache products is usually easier over the internet :
From the UK retailers, try www.jacksonart.co.uk
The Geneva Head Office of Caran d’Ache is at www.carandache.ch/
To compare colours from one manufacturer’s products to another
Latest revision December 2011
Coloured Pencil BRANDS
LIGHTFASTNESS of pencils 1 and LIGHTFASTNESS 2 ( some test5s carried out in strong sunlight by a reader
PRICE & CONTENT of Coloured Pencils : COLOUR COMPARISONS between brands :
and a listing page by page of the various manufacturers selling Coloured Pencils in the United Kingdom and in Europe.
DERWENT ; FABER-
DALER ROWNEY ; CONTE ; CRETACOLOR.