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Good colored pencils


blondeviolin
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Just our experience...I was all set to "splurge" on colored pencils, but decided to start with a box of Crayola (I figured the toddler would be getting into them some). They have been great so far. No broken leads even though a few have been dropped on the hard floor. We will probably look at investing in some nicer ones later on as the kids get older.

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Yep, Prismacolors. Not Prismacolor Scholars; those have harder leads. They are absolutely worth it. Sylvia's still using some Rose Art and Crayola pencils and I can tell the difference when I compare it with Rebecca's Prismacolor work.

 

Never thought I'd have an opinion on colored pencils!

 

ETA: They often go on sale at Michael's, or you can use a 40% off coupon for them.

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Prismacolors. They are awesome.

 

The kids have almost worn ours to nubs this year they love them so much. We would never go back to Crayola or Rose Art. Michaels carries them, so with a 50% off coupon they are not terribly expensive.

 

OK, now I have to go get some Prismacolors after all...:tongue_smilie:

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I think this site is from one of the board members. If you scroll down, there is a video and she talks about colored pencils and she compares Lyra, Crayola, and Prismacolor.

 

I bought these very cheap tumblers to store our different types of pencils. We have a hard floor, so I try to have the kids put them right back. (Ha!) And for the non-artistic ones like me, there she linked a video towards the bottom about sharpening pencils properly. (Yes, I was doing it wrong.)

Edited by Clairelise
punctuation does help!
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I think this site is from one of the board members, If you scroll down, there is a video and she talks about colored pencils ... she compares Lyra, Crayola, and Prismacolor.

 

 

Thanks for posting this; I'd forgotten about her videos. I need to go watch everything again (this artsy crafty stuff doesn't come naturally to me). My son has been using our colored pencils to do his math worksheets which keeps things a bit more fun. He hasn't been one to create much "artwork" yet on his own though. I can't wait to try some nicer pencils and see if it sparks something...? I guess we'll try to use up the Crayolas on worksheets...and my artistic, pencil-loving toddler...he'll write with anything! :D

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For things like this, I like to start with cheap and move up. The Crayolas were too frustrating - the color wasn't very good.

 

Next I tried Faber-Castell - these. They're cheap, but we've found them to be fine. Perhaps if the kids become fine artists, we'll move up, but otherwise, we've been pleased. I actually just bought a new set to replace the missing ones and the ones that are getting really short.

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We love Prismacolor Scholars. I've read reviews about them breaking easily when dropped, but we've never had that problem. I have a 4 year old and 3 year old, so they are dropped A LOT. I did buy the Prismacolor pencil sharpener, which is a great purchase, no matter what pencils you use. We had a set of Sargent Art pencils, which I wasn't loving. Once I started using the Prismacolor sharpener, they were much more workable. Now they are my 3 year olds "fun" pencils. Even those were a huge improvement from Crayola. My kids are drawing on a daily basis, so I felt like it was one of those worthwhile investments. I found Amazon to have the best prices on the Scholars. I had them in my cart for a week or so and they ended up being on my Today's Deal page for a really great deal at the end of the week.

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A few weeks ago I bought Blick brand pencil colors. I love them. I had a set of Prismacolors we bought from Michales but they were so frustrating, all the leads were broken (sharpen, break, try and resharpen, break). The Blick colored pencils are much cheaper and if you use the 40% coupon that comes out every few weeks it is very cheap. I have not had a problem with broken leads and the colors go on so smooth.

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I've heard Prismacolors are good, but which kind? Or a different brand? I'm okay spending more than Crayola, but I don't really want to spend $50 on colored pencils, y'know?

 

I buy Prismacolor Premier, they make a huge difference in the final product. I buy off ebay and always pay 1/2 off retail (or less), it just requires a little patience. :D Never had a problem with Prismacolor and broken leads...those should have been returned to the store.

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I've been happy with all styles of Lyra we've owned. I also like our Faber-Castell pencils.

 

We have

Lyra Slim Groove- new for this year, pretty colors

Lyra Ferby- the colors are amazing, but the large size doesn't work well for small details. These are indestructable. Ours have been going strong for at least 5 years

Faber-Castell grips- there are metallic colors too

 

I see you have several little kids. They would probably love big fat Super Ferbys. They are very durable pencils. Ours have been dropped on tile floors for years, and have yet to break. I've heard Prismacolors are fragile, which is why we've stayed away from them.

Edited by Julianna
correcting Ferby name
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I've been happy with all styles of Lyra we've owned. I also like our Faber-Castell pencils.

 

We have

Lyra Slim Groove- new for this year, pretty colors

Lyra Ferby- the colors are amazing, but the large size doesn't work well for small details. These are indestructable. Ours have been going strong for at least 5 years

Faber-Castell grips- there are metallic colors too

 

I see you have several little kids. They would probably love big fat Ferby Giants. They are very durable pencils. Ours have been dropped on tile floors for years, and have yet to break. I've heard Prismacolors are fragile, which is why we've stayed away from them.

 

We found the metallic Faber-Castell at an art museum gift shop and it was an impulse buy. One of mine has a lot of fun making space pictures on black paper with them!

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Thanks for posting this; I'd forgotten about her videos. I need to go watch everything again (this artsy crafty stuff doesn't come naturally to me). My son has been using our colored pencils to do his math worksheets which keeps things a bit more fun. He hasn't been one to create much "artwork" yet on his own though. I can't wait to try some nicer pencils and see if it sparks something...? I guess we'll try to use up the Crayolas on worksheets...and my artistic, pencil-loving toddler...he'll write with anything! :D

It doesn't come naturally for me, either. I didn't even know how to sharpen the things, let alone how to choose nice ones!

 

I also let the oldest use the Crayolas for math and the youngest (who is very rough with things) uses them, too. They have their place! :)

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I've been happy with all styles of Lyra we've owned. I also like our Faber-Castell pencils.

 

We have

Lyra Slim Groove- new for this year, pretty colors

Lyra Ferby- the colors are amazing, but the large size doesn't work well for small details. These are indestructable. Ours have been going strong for at least 5 years

Faber-Castell grips- there are metallic colors too

 

I see you have several little kids. They would probably love big fat Ferby Giants. They are very durable pencils. Ours have been dropped on tile floors for years, and have yet to break. I've heard Prismacolors are fragile, which is why we've stayed away from them.

 

:iagree: I love Ferby Lyla crayons for my 5 and 3 year old. They are solidly built and the color is outstanding. Crayola looks faded on paper in comparison. My husband picked one up to color with my three year old and 10 minutes later my three year old was building with blocks and my husband had colored the whole page. He commented that they were amazing colored pencils and where did I get them.

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To the OP: Your kids are still pretty young. At that age, I would suggest the big set (30) of Crayola Twistable colored pencils. It costs about $10 and it should last the whole year. My ds loves to create, and the Twistables were durable, dependable, and worked just fine for him since he didn't have to deal with sharpening them while he was in the middle of a project.

 

Now, if you want to ask about watercolors, that's a different story... (Winsor & Newton, all the way! :D)

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any made by Lyra. We have the Lyra Color Giants. i bought our sets from DickBlick Art Supplies and paper, Scissors, Stone. The latter sells individual colors. These are a bit $$ but really worth it. They are long lasting, almost creamy, do not break when sharpened, thick leads but easy to draw with. My kids love them.

 

http://www.waldorfsupplies.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/psstone/store/agora.cgi?product=Pencils_and_Pens&xm=on

 

http://www.dickblick.com/brands/lyra/#pencils

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We started off with a set of Prismacolors. Apparently the set had already been dropped at the store - we could not get any of them to sharpen because the leads were all broken.

 

We then went to Lyra Ferby. They are incredible!!! Absolutely adore them. We moved up to the Lyra Giants a few years ago. Still have all of them, no lead broken and they color beautifully. Glad to see someone mention a Lyra slim.. we'll have to get those too as DS gets a bit older :)

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Any specific set you like best? I saw a set on Amazon for ~$9----the triangular unlacquered giant Ferby set of 6 pencils.

 

I like any of the Lyra sets that are not the Waldorf edition...The Waldorf editions don't have the color black, and we need that color :)...If it is a six set Waldorf edition, it doesn't have orange either...My oldest prefers the Giants, while my two younger prefer the triangular shaped...

I usually by them loose, either at a store or a site like this...

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The softer the lead, the more likely it is to smudge as well as break. It is the smudging that gets me. I can be a bit OCD at times.

 

All too often I end out using the Crayola Twistable Crayons. They can be sharpened with a regular pencil sharpener and the color choices fit the color wheel better than the Crayola Twistable Pencils. My OCD rears it's head again here, when there are missing color wheel colors. I get freaked out over the color choices in most sets. You wouldn't believe how rare it is for a set (of any medium) to have all 12 color wheel colors, even with 36, 48 or more colors. Seriously, take a look! Ugh! I want my blue violet, red violet, red orange, yellow orange, yellow green, and blue green thank you very much!

 

Both Crayola crayons and pencils are made of the same plastic material, that goes on smoothly and does not smudge. The crayon cores are just wider than the pencil cores. Am I thrilled with them? No! But I'm not thrilled with any of the more expensive and harder to obtain alternatives, so...

 

When I do use colored pencils, I sharpen them with an Exacto knife. I found an Exacto knife that looks like a retractable pen. It's more awkward to use than a traditional Exacto, but it's more discreet, so I fumble with it.

 

With pencils, I tend to always go back to Crayola or Prismacolor Thins. The Thins are harder and narrower than the regular, and are great for very precise work. The Thins are cheaper and weigh less than the traditional Prismacolor. They also smudge less than the regular. So when the twistables, just are not precise enough even when sharpened (the cores wiggle a bit in the barrel), I resort to the Thins and an Exacto knife or an impulsive purchase of Crayola pencils on sale.

Edited by Hunter
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  • 2 months later...

Yes, we like the Twistables colored pencils too! I have a huge pack of PrismaColor, but DD doesn't get to use those yet. We use Twistables crayons too. They both make me quite happy.

 

To the OP: Your kids are still pretty young. At that age, I would suggest the big set (30) of Crayola Twistable colored pencils. It costs about $10 and it should last the whole year. My ds loves to create, and the Twistables were durable, dependable, and worked just fine for him since he didn't have to deal with sharpening them while he was in the middle of a project.

 

Now, if you want to ask about watercolors, that's a different story... (Winsor & Newton, all the way! :D)

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I like Lyra color pencils, they are rich earthtone colors and they are durable with young children. Prisma's are great as well, but the lead tends to break more often then lyra's.

 

I bought my dc Lyra because of reading on here that Prismacolors tend to break more often, and I knew my kids would be dropping their pencils. . .The Lyras have been great and although they're been dropped many times, I haven't seen any broken leads.

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I bought a box of 30 Caran D'Ache Prismalo water-soluble pencil crayons when I was 12 yo, spending every penny of the money I'd saved, been given at Christmas and for my birthday. I had years of pleasure from them, and now at 48 yo my four boys are still enjoying what's left of most of them. So, they still give me enormous pleasure 36 yo later, albeit in a rather different way. A very good investment I think :001_smile:.

 

Cassy

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