Though Derwent premiered its first colored pencil in 1936, the company has yet to gain as much notoriety as competitors like Prismacolor or Faber-Castell. Even the online sphere has limited content on the Derwent art supply conversation. However, this post is interested in talking about the various series of Derwent colored pencils, offering a look into what makes Derwent great, and areas for improvement.
Derwent houses a total of 7 different colored pencil series: Colorsoft, Artist, Prcolour, Studio, Drawing, Lightfast, and Metallic lines of colored pencils. Regardless of which series you buy, each one is defined by the unique Derwent high-pigment to a low-binder ratio in all of their pencils. Derwent is also known for its soft feel and thicker barrel inside the pencil itself.
Derwent Colorsoft
The iconic Derwent 4mm barrel and 6.5mm pencil boasts a thick and soft brand of colored pencil. These scholastic-level colored pencils are best used for filling large areas with color quickly and are great for blending base colors, creating more unique colors through complex blends of primary and mid-tones.
Due to the low wax binder, the picture on the page will be less shiny with less wax bloom compared to many other wax-bound pencils. Users can expect a soft creamy feel when coloring and vivid pigment pull the eye into the page as the color quickly settles into the tooth of the paper. Color soft is probably the best bet for versatility with excellent feel and saturation.
However, the Colorsoft pencils are not great for detailed work and will not shine through in terms of color or texture with the finer points of most subjects in an art piece. Because of how soft the barrel is, the tips tend to break pretty easily, especially when sharpening the pencils. Additionally, for 72 colors with excellent primaries and earth tones, some of the cool mid-tones, such as a pale blue, for example, can come out muted. Typically a set of 72 costs around $85.00 which is a standard price for most scholastic-level art supplies.
Derwent Artist
The Artist series is also a thick pencil with a 4mm barrel and an 8mm pencil altogether. Similar to the Color soft line, these pencils contain a high-pigment to low-binder formula. But that’s about where the similarities end.
Despite the pigmented large core, the artist line has a hard barrel feel on the page while producing soft textures with low wax bloom. The harder core does more for working in the fine details of an art piece, but as other artists have attested too, it requires the right paper, which is especially the case for the Derwent Artist line; Strathmore Bristol Smooth and Strathmore Bristol Plate are the most recommended papers for the Artist series.
Where the Colorsoft line excels at blending, the artist series is better for mixing colors into gradients for large areas. And though yes, it is easier to get to the finer details with a harder point, the in’s-and-outs of an art piece’s subject may come off muted as compared to professional colored pencils like Prismacolor Premier or Faber-Castell Polychromo. A set of 72 costs $85.00 on average.
Derwent Procolour
Though not as popular as the iconic Colorsoft line, the Procolour line of Derwent pencils excels in the areas where Colorsoft drops off, and the Artist set picks up. The Procolour series is another thick 4mm barrel with a high-pigment, low-binder ratio — not as extreme as the Colorsoft, but still noticeable.
This line is excellent for blending colors in large areas to create vivid and unique colors, as well as mixing one color into another for prominent gradients. Additionally, with a harder core similar to the Artist series, these pencils can be worked into the finer details of a picture as well. So then, where do these drop-offs? Price.
The Procolour series typically runs about $104.00 through most online retailers, with higher prices through art or box stores. For that amount of money, a consumer would get better value saving up for Prismacolor Premier colored pencils, especially when considering that not all 72 colors of the Derwent Procolour are going to come out as vivid as professional-grade colored pencils.
Though the Procolours have excellent greens and blues, as opposed to the high-end warm tones of Colorsofts, both lines lack in the purple and deep reds department along with muted or dead mid-tone colors for any given transitional color pencil, i.e., Pale Vermillion, Light Violet, or Red Violet Lake. Essentially, these are good scholastic-level colored pencils, just not good for the price.
Derwent Studio
If Colorsoft is known for its large area blending with saturated pigment, then the Derwent Studio series is known for the exact opposite. With a smaller 3.4mm core and higher wax-binder ratio, the Studio series shines in the detail work and falls off in the blending and mixing department, which is painfully obvious.
These aren’t going to be a go-to for a whole art piece; rather, the point of the studio series is to make up for the lack where all the other Derwent series drop off, essentially making the Studio set a supplemental set of colored pencils. Blends are much harder to pull off in large areas, and the colors will be fighting each other for the spotlight. The same goes for creating gradients with the Studio series, not that it’s impossible, because in the world of art, nothing is — or at least that’s what my middle school art teacher led me to believe.
However, these pencils are wonderful for a single color of details on bird feathers or contour color in a given subject area. Additionally, because of the harder core and smaller barrel, these pencils hold up against pressure much better than their thicker and softer counterparts. But just like the Procolour series, it’s hard to justify the value of these pencils with an average $120.00 price tag for a scholastic-level colored pencil.
Derwent Drawing
If you like the Color soft pencils for what they’re good at, then chances are you’ll like the Derwent Drawing line just as much. With an even thicker 5mm barrel in an 8mm pencil, the Drawing series is all about a smooth, creamy feel with the most bendable colors.
Many of the colors focus on mid and earth tones giving the Drawing series a niche in landscapes and animal portraits. However, for anything else, and ironically for actual drawing, go with a different pencil. The thick creamy cores of vivid pigment do wonders for color blending, gradients, and even texture for rolling hills and families of foxes, but if you’re looking to do line work on colorful tattoo art or intricate mandalas… sorry, pal, you’re going to have a rougher time compared to most other scholastic or professional colored pencil lines.
The other downside is only 24 colors or fewer. Sets of 72 so far don’t exist for the Drawing series putting them in the same specialty or supplemental category as the Studio series but for a different niche. The 24-set typically costs about $46.00 or more, which can be difficult to justify if you aren’t an avid fan of landscapes and animal portraits.
Derwent Lightfast
Unlike all other Derwent lines of colored pencils, the Lightfast series is an oil-bound colored pencil. Users can still expect the same adept blending capabilities while maintaining the Derwent smooth feel when coloring. I
n many ways, this newest line of colored pencils from Derwent addresses the problems of their older lines. Every color in the Lightfast set is super bendable in both larger areas and finer details. Additionally, the colors offered in the 72 sets are a combination of dark colors with dark mid-tones and light colors with light hues. This color selection is excellent for complex contrast on top of the unique color blends available to colorists.
These pencils still hold the Derwent 4mm barrel in an 8mm pencil to dish out the color quickly and vibrantly. The pencils excel in areas that contain water to be colored, starlit night skies, and reflective surfaces. As the name suggests, these are the lightfast pencils Derwent has to boast, meaning the color goes into the paper quickly and stays in the paper with longevity. This is great because Derwent provides zero information on the lightfastness of their colored pencils, requiring artists to do their experimenting and calculating of lightfastness for each pencil. A task that requires time, money, and attention that not all colorists are interested in investing in.
However, on the flip side, because of a high contrast color choice, there are lots of colors not available in the Lightfast set that are easily accessible in the Colorsoft and Procolour series. This is unfortunate because these oil-bound pencils are some of the best for oil-colored pencils at the scholastic level, nearly competing with the mighty Faber-Castell oil-colored pencils… if it wasn’t for the lack of color options.
A set of 72 costs buys an average of $147.00, another steep price for a product that is on the border of scholastic level art supply to professional level art supply. Don’t be surprised if many professional artists give the Derwent Lightfast a good mention but still end up using Faber-Castell’s for just a little extra dough.
Check out more colored pencil recommendations HERE.
Derwent Metallic
First and foremost, the Metallic series is a specialty set, so if you aren’t looking for popping golds, stunning silvers, and brilliant rose bronze colors, don’t buy these. However, if you need some good metallic colors in your arsenal, it’s worth your time to consider the Derwent Metallic series for two reasons.
The first is the wide choice of colors offered. Multiple gold tones, an array of silver tones, cool mid-tone metallics with blues in them, and more. A full set of 12 metallics pretty much covers a wide band of needs for any pictures, especially since these metallics are quite mix-friendly for creative gradients with other colored pencil types. The feel is still the smooth, creamy experience associated with Derwent’s Colorsoft line, and the colors are just as vivid… kind of.
Similar to the Artist line of colored pencils, Derwent Metallics requires the right paper to get the most out of. White paper will not do the color in these pencils justice; the brown and greyed paper will deteriorate the potential of these pencils as well. A cardstock-style black paper, however, provides the metallic pigment a base to shine on, like panning for gold in a creek made of space ink.
So, where do these colored pencils drop off? Well, right away in the name. I don’t know of a single artist who colors an entire piece with just metallics. Metallic colors are a specialty that makes dishing out even just $24.00 for a set of 12 colors that are hard to sell if you’re not using them in your art pieces regularly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which series of Derwent Colored Pencils is most recommended?
To be completely honest, when it comes to getting the experience of what Derwent Colored Pencils have to offer for a value price, go with Colorsoft. It’s their classic hit that continues to pay dividends back to their users. If you don’t mind spending a little more money and want a tighter weave on your first layer of color, you have a choice between the Artists sets and the Procolour sets; however, keep in mind that though there are differences between the latter two sets and Colorsoft set, ultimately the differences aren’t massively noticeable compared to buying a different brand of colored pencils.
Why are Derwent colored pencils considered scholastic and not professional art supplies?
This comes down to the price of product quality. If Crayola colored pencils are cheaply made in bulk for an extremely budget-friendly buyer, and Prismacolor’s or Faber-Castell’s are made with excellent quality for the hearty price, the middle man like Derwent cuts the difference with a good quality art supply at a median price between the student grade art supply and the professional-grade art supply.
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