Trying to decide what brand of colored pencils to buy can be a daunting task, especially since there are so many well-known names to choose from. Making the right choice can prove to be difficult if you don’t know what makes a colored pencil a good choice or a bad choice. Furthermore, if you are new to using colored pencils the thought of spending a substantial amount of money on a set only to be disappointed in their output adds to the frustrations.
Nearly every product you see on the market has positive feedback from satisfied customers as well as negative reviews from customers unhappy with their purchases. Sorting through all of the details to determine whether or not the product you’re looking to buy is favorable or not often comes down to personal preference. The same holds for whether or not Sargent colored pencils are good or bad.
The Good About Sargent Colored Pencils
One of the good things about Sargent Colored Pencils is they are inexpensive when compared to other colored pencil brands. This makes them ideal for beginners and people on a budget who are just getting started working with colored pencils and can’t afford to invest in a more professional and expensive brand. Another benefit to being a cheaper colored pencil option is Sargent Colored Pencils are ideal to use in the classroom where they will likely undergo the wear and tear of frequent use by a multitude of kids.
Sargent Colored Pencils are also a good choice for use in the classroom because they have a harder core than other economical colored pencils making them more durable and less likely to break. One more reason they are a great option to use in school is the adequate range of colors available that cover the basic needs for coloring, offering a larger color wheel with which to work. Sargent Colored Pencils offers multiple shades of reds, oranges, greens, and blues that are most frequently used by kids learning their colors.
In addition to having a variety of primary colors in multiple shades, the box in which the colored pencils are packaged has a detailed chart that labels the colors. This makes it easier for teachers to identify which colored pencils need to be replaced when they get used up. Also when it comes to color matching, the colored pencil’s core is identical to the color of the pencil’s barrel. This makes it easy for young children to be able to identify and choose the color they want to use.
Colored Pencil with Style
Sargent Colored Pencils have a larger diameter core than the average colored pencil which probably accounts for its added core strength. It also makes it easier to apply more color in less time by having a slightly bigger coloring surface area than other colored pencils of the same quality. When coloring with Sargent Colored Pencils, many find that the color is faint when applying light pressure which can be a good thing if the user needs to erase any mistakes while coloring.
The greatest thing about Sargent Colored Pencils is the bounteous variety of colored pencil types and styles that are available compared to other similarly priced brands. In addition to the standard colored pencil, they offer watercolor pencils that are great for projects that need blending, shiny metallic colored pencils for specialty jobs, and bright neon colors giving users more flexibility in their creativity.
They also have colored pencils available in either the regular round barrel or the triangular barrel which prevents the pencil from rolling away. Sargent Colored Pencils also come in a jumbo-size triangular barrel which is great for younger kids who are just learning how to properly hold and grip a colored pencil. Other special varieties of colored pencils available from Sargent include erasable colored pencils and construction paper colored pencils that apply a bolder hue to contrast with the color of the paper. In addition, they offer half-size pencils that are shorter than the standard seven-inch pencil.
Bonus Features
The website for Sargent Colored Pencils offers more than just detailed descriptions of each type of colored pencil. It contains an art teacher support center featuring a wide range of lesson plans arranged by grade levels beginning with kindergarten and going all the way up to high school seniors. Each lesson is designed to aid in making teaching and learning how to draw with colored pencils more enjoyable for everyone involved. Plus the website is welcome to user feedback to continually improve the instructional materials available.
In addition to the free online teaching materials, Sargent Colored Pencil’s website hosts art contests for both students and teachers across the United States. The student contest awards an overall grand prize winner as well as a winner for each of three age groups, elementary, middle, and high school. Other events hosted by the Sargent brand include art education conferences and vendor fairs.
The Bad About Sargent Colored Pencils
While Sargent Colored Pencils are made to be durable with a hard wax-based core, it quickly becomes apparent why it’s necessary. The reason they need to be so strong is to be able to withstand the intense pressure you’ll need to apply to get any real color on the paper. Having a high concentration of wax compared to pigment also requires more swipes across the page to get complete saturation.
In addition, color intensity requires a heavy hand of steady pressure if one hopes to get a consistent shade. This need to press extra firmly on the paper with a tighter grip on the colored pencil is going to cause cramping in the hand, wrist, and sometimes forearm. As a result, the time spent coloring will be prematurely shortened due to the discomfort it has caused. For that reason, people who have issues with joint pain or arthritis may want to steer clear of Sargent Colored Pencils.
Even though they have a harder core than other colored pencil brands, Sargent Colored Pencils tend to break more easily when sharpening them. This difficulty with sharpening these pencils results in more time spent trying to sharpen them than coloring with them. Frequent breakage during the sharpening process seems to be a common problem with cheaper brands of colored pencils like Sargent.
Accuracy and Integrity of Packaging
Upon first glance, a shopper is going to be excited by the set of 120 colored pencils thinking they have found the biggest rainbow of colors available. But it turns out this pack is designed specifically for classroom use with multiple pencils of the same color so that more than one kid can use the color green for example. So while this is a good feature for teachers, it’s bad labeling on the part of the manufacturer.
On that note, the variety of colors in the 50-colored pencils set is technically only 48 different colors since there are duplicates of white and black. Also, this set is overloaded with shades of green that look more alike than different. Other color issues in this colored pencil set are that the gold resembles more of a shade of brown than gold and silver comes out looking like a dark gray.
Customers of Sargent Colored Pencils have found that quality control at the manufacturing level to be less than satisfactory. Some have found that the colored pencils listed on the back of the storage box don’t always match the pencils in the box. Often they find that a particular color is missing from the set and they have a duplicate of another color in its place.
Another complaint from people who have purchased certain sets of the Sargent Colored Pencil line pertains to the cardboard box in which they are packaged. The company boasts the durability of its colored pencils but the structural integrity of the flimsy box they come in needs improvement. Other colored pencil sets they sell are packed in a metal tin, however, the plastic tray that holds them in place has quite the grip making it difficult to remove just one pencil at a time.
The Ugly About Sargent Colored Pencils
Sargent Colored Pencils are not ideal for the professional coloring techniques of back and forth or scumbling. This is because of the inconsistency of the color intensity as you move the pencil across the page. Trying to use hatching and cross-hatching to create textures with these pencils is difficult to achieve when there is no color consistency. They are almost useless for blending and layering techniques and the color quality from trying to blend is poor at best.
The level of color output, as well as the intensity of the color, is inconsistent from one colored pencil to the next. This is believed to be caused by the variances of pigment to binder ratio which occurs during the production process of this brand of colored pencils. When there is a higher concentration of wax in a colored pencil’s core, the results are a chalky-looking color and a blotchy appearance on the paper from the negative space being left behind.
Wax Goes On Wax Comes Off
The hardness of these colored pencils’ cores prevents fluidity of the color application as you move across the paper. This results in color saturation that is faint as well as inconsistent in its coverage. The boldness of color is nearly unattainable with Sargent Colored Pencils and the waxiness of the core makes blending and layering next to impossible.
The color does not layer evenly on the page which inhibits the artist’s ability to make natural-looking hues that one can normally achieve with other brands. For example, trying to get the color of a grassy field using the yellows and blues of Sargent Colored Pencils tends to look patchy and cartoonish. Trying to create darker shades proves challenging because the color does not adequately fill in the valleys of the tooth of the paper, leaving behind the bright white of the page.
Another dilemma related to the heaviness of the wax in the core of this brand of colored pencils is the frequency of the problem with wax bloom. Wax bloom is caused by the oxidation process that naturally occurs over time in wax-based products like colored pencils. It causes a cloudy, milky white film to form on the drawing and requires being wiped away before sealing the finished piece with a fixative.
Bright Lights and Hues Amiss
A different issue with Sargent Colored Pencils that involves the passing of time is that of the pencil color’s lightfastness. Because the color intensity is already faint when it’s applied to the paper, the rate at which the hues begin to fade when exposed to light is substantially higher. The permanence of the pigment relies on factors such as the nature of the color, the level of color concentration, and the binder used, in this case, wax.
Customers who have attempted to color with these pencils say the more you try to use them the more disappointed you become with their performance, regardless of the type of paper you use. Colors do not come out on the page the same shade as the hue painted on the barrel of the colored pencil. Red looks more like blood orange, navy blue is not the deep water look you’re expecting, tan appears to be more of a yellow, and yellow is nearly invisible.
To Buy Or Not To Buy
The beauty of art is in the eye of the beholder and the opinion of the quality of art supplies is equally subjective. In the case of Sargent Colored Pencils, the concept of buyer beware is more accurately phrased as the buyer should be aware by understanding the limitations of the product they want to purchase. Determining whether or not these colored pencils are good or bad requires knowing how they will be used as well as an individual’s definition of good.
Overall, Amazon customers have given a five-star rating to Sargent Colored Pencils 60-70% of the time. Most of these four and five-star ratings, however, reflect the economically low price of these colored pencils rather than a grading of their performance quality. The consensus seems to be that these colored pencils are ideal for novice artists and people simply wanting to color in coloring books.
Expert artists have found that the colored pencil’s core is far too hard to work with on a professional level and they suggest these colored pencils are only suitable for beginners needing to practice their coloring techniques. Perhaps that is why the Sargent brand markets and promotes its line of products to art educators and schools with a focus on making art fun.
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. So when you choose to buy a cheaper product like Sargent Colored Pencils, it shouldn’t be a surprise they are going to be of poorer quality than the more expensive brands available on the market. The two biggest complaints among reviewers seem to hover around the fact that both the colored pencils and the packaging they come in are subpar quality.
If the manufacturers made improvements to the balance between the amounts of wax and pigment, the application of color would likely improve as well. Looking into better materials for the cardboard boxes and metal tins the sets are packaged in would also improve the overall quality ratings of Sargent Colored Pencils.
The biggest redeeming virtue of the Sargent Colored Pencil brand is its passion for teaching art and encouraging art appreciation from an early age. They know the importance of passing on the knowledge and skills related to the visual arts are equally vital to a child’s education and development as subjects like math and science. Through community programs like art contests and teacher resources, Sargent Colored Pencils strives to enrich the lives of every aspiring artist.
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