I have not been able to draw a single thing outside of a studio class since February. I think I’ve started and stopped about four different projects, at most I would get half-way done but even that was rare. I firmly believe in “pushing through” blocks of any kind (hence the starting and stopping four drawings) and that usually works for me. It did not work this time, I genuinely could not push through this one no matter how many times I tried to. It had been so long that I actually got worried I just lost interest in drawing.
So I decided to try and buy my way out of it this time.
And I’m sure everyone is as deeply fascinated by pencil brands as I am and loves reading my thoughts on them.
Just as a recap, the first pencils I ever used were $5 bundles of Artist Loft. I used those for about two or three years, I still use them for all my sketches. I even have a dedicated sketchbook for my Artist Loft drawings, I really believe that they are a good brand. I would even pick them over my more expensive Winsor & Newton pencils. Winsor & Newton are not a good pencil brand, last year I remember writing a piece singing their praise for being “better” than Artist Loft. And after using them for a year I really don’t agree with that anymore. They’re fine. My main issue with them is that even the hard pencils (2H-4H) are soft. They’re not as soft as an 8B or 10B but they’re really just not as hard as they should be. And it took a long while before I realized that they were so bad I just wasn’t using them. I really only used the 2B and 6B pencils to make anything. This drawing for example was made exclusively with 2B and 6B pencils, I would use my eraser as a blending tool just to achieve that hard pencil look. You can really tell (or at least I can) there isn’t much difference in lighting as a result. All the figures look like they’re in the foreground which wasn’t really what I was going for here.
But I should also note that these are slightly unfair comparisons. Winsor & Newton is not a fine art pencil brand like Faber Castell, Derwent, or Caran D’Ache. And I know Artist Loft also isn’t a fine art pencil brand but they get a pass since their pencils are at the very least harder than Winsor & Newton’s.
Then I switched to Faber Castell. They are my recently demoted to second place favorite pencil brand. They are very, very good pencils and I used them for almost every assignment in Drawing I last semester. I especially like that they have 9H pencils, before them I assumed the hardest a pencil could get was 4H. And they’re really not that expensive, much cheaper than Winsor & Newton. You can get a pack of Winsor & Newton for about $20-25 depending on where you shop. Faber Castell’s for $10-13 (not at Michaels, don’t go to Michaels they upcharge a ridiculous amount.) But Faber Castell is all in all a really good brand, my only complaint with them is that sharpening pencils is a nightmare. It got to the point where I had to start using my box cutter to sharpen my pencils because any pencil sharpener I tried to use on them would break the graphite. And maybe that’s just a user error but I have never had that happen so frequently with any other brand.
On to my current #1 favorite pencils as of late and what I bought to get out of my art block. Derwent pencils. Derwent is unfortunately one of the more expensive brands to buy from, you’re looking at a minimum of $30 for a 12-pack of graphite pencils. But nothing holds a flame to the price of Caran D’Ache graphite pencils. I originally was planning on buying Caran D’Ache but their pencils (the ones I would use at least) are starting at a minimum of $50 for a small pack. Maybe for my next art block I’ll be super irresponsible with my credit card but not this go around.
Derwent has very quickly overshadowed every other brand I’ve ever used. I’ve made a total of half a drawing with Derwent and already want to make ten more pieces. Here’s a detail of my current drawing. I’m not sure how well it translates through a picture but this graphite is so incredibly smooth.
Especially compared to this piece that I used Artist Loft for.
I don’t notice a huge difference in terms of looks between my drawings where I used Faber Castell:
and Derwent but they feel different to use. I plan on making a few more bigger pieces with Derwent to really test them out and see how they hold up over time but even for this small piece I’m making right now, I can already tell Derwent will remain a top 3 brand for me.
Thank you for coming to my Pencil Talk, join me next time as I recklessly use my credit card and buy a $400 pack of 15 Caran D’Ache pencils.
~Ana