Hello again friends, today I have a video for you and I am colouring with Arteza Expert Watercolor Pencils. Arteza contacted me recently and asked if I would like to review their watercolor pencils and since I love to watercolour, I thought it would be great to see how they worked. I have not been asked to say anything specific at all about the product, and so all opinions in the video and here on my blog are mine and mine only.
Here is the card that I created with the pencils for you today. The image is from the lovely Pick A Peony set from Clearly Besotted.
And here is the video for you. It includes a review of the pencils plus the footage of me colouring the entire image.
The Pencils
The set of Arteza 72 Expert Watercolor Pencils come in a robust compact tin. They are professional grade, artist quality pencils. They have lightfast and acid-free quality pigments. You can use them either for dry pencil techniques and also for watercolour techniques – today I use them solely as a watercolour pencil. I will say now, I did really enjoy colouring with these pencils, they are great quality and value for a 72 set.
They are also break-resistant. I did experience a little bit of breakage when I sharpened all the pencils when they arrived. This was mostly due to my sharpener and when I switched out to a different sharpener, I experienced far far less breakage. There are 72 colours to chose from – a very good mix of colours although I did feel it would have been useful to have included a few more blues in the set and perhaps a few less greens. But that is a personal preference, you have plenty to chose from and they are super pretty!
The back of the tin has a colour chart but I did create a swatch chart using the Arteza Expert Watercolor Pad for my own purposes. I always like to see how the pencils blend on the cardstock that I am most likely to use them with. The colour chart has the pencils listed in a different order to how they appear in the tin, so I have now re-arranged the order in my tin to match the chart on the back (and my swatch chart) which makes it much quicker to find the pencil you are looking for.
As you can see in the picture above, the pencils are stored in black plastic trays within the tin and there are three trays holding 24 pencils each. They are a little bit flimsy and bend as you take them out but they do hold onto the pencils and I do think keeping them in a tin is a great way to store them. There is far less chance of damage this way. On each pencil, you have the colour name and number listed for reference and they are a hexagon shaped barrel which is great as they don’t roll around on your work surface.
The price point for this set is very attractive I believe for a 72 pencil set and I thought they were really good quality for that price and I thoroughly enjoyed colouring with them. I only have one other set of watercolor pencils (Derwent Inktense pencils) and I felt that they compared favourably with those. Probably a little less intense than the Inktense pencils and you did need a fair bit of water to blend them out and get the pigment moving. This was not a problem at all though as the Arteza cardstock can take plenty of water.
The Cardstock
For my card today I used the Arteza Watercolor Pad (Expert). It is a cold press paper, 300gsm/140lb and is dual sided. So you get one textured side and the other side is smoother. For my card today I used the textured side but both sides performed well with the pencils. So, it is a thick cardstock, good quality and the pencils blended really well on it. It is acid free and non-fade – all great qualities to have in a cardstock. There are 32 sheets in each pad, and when you purchase you buy a set of 2 pads. Again, great price for the quality and amount of cardstock you receive.
The Colouring
To really see how the pencils work in practice, it’s a good idea to watch the video as you can really see them come to life. I used a paintbrush for colouring my image and worked, as always, in layers. The colours that I chose blended very well together and I was able to achieve the vibrancy that I wanted through adding the different layers. Sometimes I added the pencil directly to the cardstock, other times, I took the pigment from the tip of the pencil with my brush and laid it down on the cardstock. The second technique I do often when I want a really intense section of colour, and also if the colouring area is small.
In summary, I loved having a play with the pencils today and was really happy with the pencils and this particular cardstock. I will also be trying them on some other watercolour cardstocks in the future to see how they blend on those too and look forward to lots more fun with them!
Discount Code
I hope that you find the review useful. If you are interested in trying any of Arteza’s products – not just what I use today, but anything from their website, I have a 10% discount code for you. The code is LisaTilson1 and is valid until 20th November.
To view products on the US site, please click here
To view products on the UK site, please click here.
Supplies
For your reference, I have provided links below to all the products that I use in this project. Affiliate links may be used on some products. All that means is that if you make a purchase after clicking on my link, I will receive a small commission. This is at no extra cost to you and I appreciate your support when using these links. To shop at your favourite store, click on your chosen logo.
I will be back soon with another card for you. In the meantime I wish you a wonderful week. Happy crafting!
Cindyellen Robinson says
pretty card. i have found that most of the Arteza products are a pretty fair value. Not amazing but then again, they get the job done at a good price point.
Debbie P says
Beautiful card. Great Watercoloring. Your tips are fantastic. Thank you.
Michelle Short says
Beautiful card, Lisa! Your colouring in the flowers is fantastic! So happy to hear that you enjoyed using the pencils. I’m off to watch your video now! xx