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      The Lyra Splender and the Derwent Blender and Burnisher Pencils

The Lyra Splender has been on sale in Europe for several years.  It is not so easy to find but is available from Mail Order and Internet sources

The Derwent Blender and Burnisher Pencils are a more recent arrival on the scene. They come in single pencils and also as part of a blister pack containing an eraser and a simple sharpener.

The prices are low so an individual mail order for one pencil is hardly economic, but ordered with other items, makes sense and should be considered.

What do they actually do ?

The names give a clue, but as the Derwent Burnisher is more closely likened to the Lyra Blender, and the Derwent Blender is a different animal altogether, they do need to be examined  and compared in more detail.

The Lyra Blender and the Derwent Burnisher will both act as a resist in putting down a layer of transparent wax that protects the paper surface from later layers of colour.  

The Lyra Splender is softer than the Burnisher.

The Derwent Blender appears to apply a layer of very soft wax from the  core which acts more as a solvent to earlier layers of colour.  Let me say here that I see little difference in performance on top of either oil based or wax based pencils even though Lyra comes from an oil based pencil manufacturer and Derwent a wax based one.

In a nutshell I think the test sheet shown below shows up the differences

I have enhanced the image above to make the differences clearer.

Firstly, note that the test was carried out on white Stonehenge paper with a pair of oil based coloured pencils and a pair of wax based ones, making the four colour boxes shown.

What do you want to do ?    

If your need is to put down some sort of resist line or area, look first at the lower pair of examples.

The Derwent has a harder core and therefore does two things.  The point applies transparent wax and at the same time indents the drawn line in the soft paper surface.  Much like a white Coloured Pencil would do.

The letters spelling out the word ‘Derwent’ are clearer as a result.  The block of colour below this shows the same effect, as the square area covered by the transparent wax is more solid from the softer Lyra pencil and shows the indents of the shading on the Derwent one.

In the final test the pencils are used in their blending mode, where the wax applied from the pencil point picks up colour from the applied surface and beds it down into the paper, eliminating the white flecks in the shading. At the same time the transparent wax lifts and merges edges of colour.  Look at the central box within the four colour block and see how the Lyra performs better as a blender than the Derwent Burnisher ( as you would expect ).  Now see how the top example compares.  The Derwent Blender does not apply a resist in any form - the word ‘Derwent’ is hardly visible in the green block.  However the  Blender does ‘what it says on the tin’ and blends the colours in the top four colour box efficiently.

Latest revision  July 2011

WORKING THE SURFACE

SECTION C

BLENDERS & BURNISHERS

WORKING the SURFACE

PAGE UPDATE NOVEMBER 2011

Caran d’Ache introduced a new wax blender/burnisher on retail sale in early October

and this has received very positive sales and feedback

An additional item has been added to this Topic below

So what do you buy ?

If you want to Indent to resist colour, you can use either a white ( or light ) Coloured Pencil from your box of pencils, or use the Burnisher from Derwent.  The Lyra is less effective.  

If you want to blend colour and bed it into the paper, both the Lyra and also the Derwent Blender are very effective.

The new Caran d’Ache Full Blender is also good though it may be difficult to find - I am told the 2 stick blister pack sold very well when it was introduced in October and I haven’t seen any advertised in the UK up to now.  I don’t know the price either, but if you come across a pack on sale, I believe it would be worth while adding it to your armoury of bits and pieces.

The Caran d’Ache blender will be too soft to use for indenting a line and might be too difficult to use for a resist.

You may find it easier to buy the Derwent pair of pencils in the UK, though both the Derwent and Lyra brands are available by Mail Order and over the Internet.   I now have all three in my box of accessories and I will certainly look out for the new brand for further supplies.

CARAN d’ACHE

October 2011 New Product

The Full Blender - Bright

This is a solid stick of high quality transparent wax

- 100% solid material and 100% usable .

It is capable of being sharpened and is reported to work well with all the Caran d’Ache coloured pencil products as well as other oil based and wax based brands.

The wax is a soft one - I suspect it is the same as the wax used in the core of the Luminance pencils, so it will naturally be expected to work well with Luminance colours.

I have done a short test on the sample I have here and the results are as shown below

The test samples on the left show that the CDA blender works very well with the Luminance colours even on a low rate of colour coverage and the lowest sample shows how the brown is picked up and carried over the white wax colour in all the samples.  With Prismacolor the white is also carried back over the brown and this shows up well.

The wax pencil samples all work well and the only exception appears to be the light sample of Polychromos - an oil based pencil.

If you look at the right hand ( heavier weight) samples, all three tested brands - including the Polychromos - worked well.

The blender has a very soft wax content and really comes into its own when used purely as a blender on a combination of colour layers.

I think we need to have a fuller test with all three brands tested side by side and this I will do as soon as I can.

In the meantime the new blender is shown to be very good at doing what it is intended for.  

I have yet to see it on sale and when it comes to choosing one against another, much will also depend on price and availability.

WORKING METHODS - for moving the medium about  :  SOLVENTS  Dissolving the wax and pigment  :

BLENDERS and BURNISHERS     and     Other ways of MANAGING THE PIGMENT

PLEASE NOTE ......

THIS SECTION

IS STILL ‘WORK IN PROGRESS’

..... parts of these pages will be re-arranged and put into a more logical progression and more information added.