moopfmerising musings

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a good set of coloured pencils for a while now. I love using markers when I draw but, unfortunately, they’re not really lightfast and so the images need to be looked after well if they’re to last a long time (and even then it’s difficult).

I’ve heard good things about Prismacolor Premier pencils but, up till now, haven’t found a good way to get them in the UK. Refuelled.com are now distributing Prismacolor in the UK so that hurdle has been jumped. They’re not selling the individual pencils but as places like Dick Blick in the US do and will ship internationally this isn’t much of an issue (the main reason for not getting these from the US in the first place is (a) customs charges, (b) tax charges and (c) mahoosive shipping charges which would make a full set work out really expensive). Ordering individual pencils, or even a bunch of individual pencils, from the US is fine as I can keep well under the import limits to avoid the tax and customs charges etc. So getting replacements isn’t an issue either.

I’ve checked out many UK/European pencil brands but they never seem to have the variety of colours that Prismacolor do and are a bit sketchy on the lightfastness. Derwent, for instance, rate the lightfastness of each of their pencils individually and they vary greatly with many of the colours just not hitting the mark.

So I’m seriously tempted to get myself the full Prismacolor set but thought I’d post to see if any of the few people who read this have ever used them. Are they lightfast? What are they like to use? Are they the dog’s doo-dahs of the pencil world?