I have been using Prismacolor colored pencils for years and have found nothing in their price range to compare. These are an extremely versatile pencil. This full set has a bit of a hefty price on it, but to be honest it is worth every penny if you use this type of product very much. I would suggest that you start with a smaller package, such as the twelve packs, use them a bit, see if they fit your needs, and then go ahead and make this purchase.
These pencils have a lot going for them. First, you can erase, which in my case is extremely important. Secondly, the colors are true and vivid and adhere to quite a number of surfaces (even more than you can imagine if you do your prep work correctly. Third, they are east to keep sharp and do not crumble as many colored pencils do during the sharpening process. Fourth, they and wonderful for blending; being the easiest to blend of any type I have ever used. Fifth, the color range offered is by far the best. With this large set I have yet to find a color or shade I could not produce with just a bit of imagination and work. Due to their ease of blending, the 132 pencils actually represent a color range that goes up into the hundreds; if not further...you are only limited by your imagination and ability. Fifth, the points, while soft and workable, do not smear or crumble as many other brands do.
Due to the sheen and almost pastel quality on the material used, these pencils will enable you go give depth to your drawings that few other stand-alone products of this sort can. In addition, and this is quite subjective, I know...they just feel right in the hand and fingers as you use them.
Now, like a couple of other reviewers here, I do NOT recommend these pencils for small children. While they hold up well in the adult hand, they are, by nature, rather fragile and to be honest, a small child can trash the pretty quickly. Better to buy them a big box of crayons and let them do what creative children do best, make a colorful mess, and have fun while they are doing it and not have to worry about breaking a relative expensive tool.
A note to teachers: Now I am not a great artist (in fact, I consider myself sort of pathetic), but I am prolific. I do occasionally teach drawing classes and have found that for the students, a more basic set of these pencils is much more productive that this large set. The small range of colors in the smaller sets forces the student to learn color blending and not rely on "ready made." Let them start simple and when they master (or at least start to comprehend the wonder of color combination and what a few basic colors can turn into with a bit of knowledge and practice, then let them buy their own. A small palate and a good blending tool are wonderful teaching tools.
I very much recommend this product...I have used many sets and will no doubt use more in the future.
Don Blankenship
The Ozarks Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencil Sets set of 132
I draw quite a bit and when I decided to incorporate some color to my drawings, I got myself a 24 pack of Prismacolor pencils and I was IN LOVE. These pencils glide on paper like pastels. They are soft and so easy to use and control. They blend like powder would. They also have this fantastic sheen to them! People have commented on how they love the reflectiveness of my artwork. Those pencils are phenomenal. It's worth every penny if you are an artist. These pencils are absolutely the best and I highly recommend them. It's top quality.
as an artist, i think that people don't realize why art material cost so much. This is one of them. Prismacolors has been the top seller in color pencils and i would never trade them in for crayola. what makes these color pencils so unique is the ways you can us them. you can blend colors really well, mix and do thing you can't do with crayola. my art teacher even emphasizes this brand becuase they are so superior and used by professionals. i reccomend that if you just buy the 12 pack of this version and compare it to crayola, you will never turn back again. i love the 132 pack and I'm sure people can go beyond that becuase of the blendability.
I used these in High School and now I refuse to go back to Crayola. These literally blend almost like using makeup. The lead is soft so be super careful not to drop or tap them because the lead will break pretty easily and then the pencil will be pretty much useless. I do NOT recommend these for children because of their fragility. They are definitely worth the price.
My husband is a colored pencil artist and has worked with these pencils for as long as I can remember. Our adult daughter is moving from graphite pencil to colored pencils in her portrait work and there is no better set of pencils for her, in our minds. This will be a birthday gift, so she doesn't have them yet, but we know she will love them and appreciate the way they handle and perform, based on my husband's many years of experience and success with them. We saved $50 buying them on Amazon instead of at the art store!
I use the Prismacolor colored pencils for coloring the Dover Coloring books and they work wonderful for that. I am no artist and know almost nothing about the different products out there, but when I took up coloring while recovering from an illness, I was using Crayola. Then I decided to try these and bought my first pack at a craft store. The prices here are very good and if you can afford to buy a larger set, do so.
The things I like are the variety of shades, how smooth and easy they go down and that they are erasable. Plus, depending on how hard you press or how many times you go over the same area, you can get very different looks. You can also do one color over another to make a new color or get a different effect. I have learned that this is not true with markers or with some other (cheaper) colored pencils.
Artists may know all of this, but hopefully this may help out other non-artists who are just getting started. - Colored Pencils - Colored Pencil - Art Supplies - Art'
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