Caran d’Ache products are the crème de la crème of art supplies. Any item they manufacture – whether it be colored pencils, water-soluble pencils, graphite sticks, etc. – is a shining jewel in an art supply collector’s studio.
I was introduced to the brand while meandering through my local art store and stumbling upon a giant open-stock display of Neocolor II water-soluble wax pastels. At the time, I had no idea how to use them, but the vibrant colors beckoned to me. I picked up a tin and went to my studio.
There was a bit of a learning curve. Actually, I’m still learning different techniques. Today, though, I just felt like coloring, so I did some swatches.
I used Arches Rough Watercolor Paper which turned out to be an excellent choice. Because the paper is so toothy, I only needed to make a light pass to get adequate coverage for filling in the squares.
Eventually, I’m going to cut these out and put them in my scrapbook.
I finished the first page of my scrapbook over the weekend! The most fun part of this project is choosing the right piece of scrap to make an interesting composition.
This scrap on Arches Rough was a tester of Sennelier Indanthrene Blue mixed with Paul Rubens glitter paint and Finetec Iridescent Paint. The background is a wash of Mission Gold Indigo and Sap Green, with a little bit of Daniel Smith Mars Yellow. It looks moody, like tears, and I thought it was an apt way to start my scrapbook. I suffer from depression and art is very therapeutic for me. I don’t want the whole project to display my sadness—I want to keep it upbeat and colorful—but I do want it to be a true representation of who I am.
Anyway, here it is! I was really impressed with how the page of the Ranger Dylusions Flip Journal held up to the watercolor wash.
Full disclosure: I love every single Stonehenge paper product I’ve tried. They are perfection, plain and simple. The Aqua Cold Press is no exception.
Available in pads, blocks, and sheets.Closeup of textureSheet thickness
In Part 1 of my search for the best colored pencil paper, I described the differences between the 4 brands of colored pencil I’m using in my test: Caran d’Ache Luminance, Caran d’Ache Pablo, Faber-Castell Polychromos, and Prismacolor Premier Soft Core. The differences between the properties of pencils affect the way they will perform on the paper, so it’s worth a quick read if you aren’t familiar with the pencils.
Before I did a more methodical test, I just wanted to play a bit with gradients of my two favorite pencils: Luminance (wax-based) and Polychromos (oil-based). They both preformed exceptionally well, however Luminance applied more smoothly. It’s worth noting that the scraps I used were trimmed from the edges of a watercolor I was working on and, despite being banged up, they still easily accepted thick layers of color.
Left: Caran d’Ache Luminance; Right: Polychromos
Then I moved on to test all four of the brands I mentioned above. From left to right, the colors I used are as follows:
Polychromos – Rose Madder Lake
Polychromos – Skyblue
Prismacolor – Lilac
Luminance – Spring Green
Pablo – Orange *
Luminance –Anthraquinoid Pink
Luminance – Light Malachite Green
Pablo – Lemon Yellow
Prismacolor – Non-Photo Blue
Polychromos – Dark Cadmium Yellow
*I snagged the paper with a sharp pencil point on the 5th square. Despite it looking like a total mess right after it happened, I was able to use some Gamsol mineral spirits to smooth out the color.
The Verdict
Stonehenge Aqua Cold Press is an excellent choice for both oil and wax based colored pencils. I slightly preferred the wax-based pencils to the oil-based pencils, because they allowed a couple more layers of coverage. The application is velvety-smooth even after several layers of color have been added. There was virtually no wax bloom to speak of. This paper is at the top of my list for both watercolor AND colored pencil projects.
Here is a 🟢 BONUS DOT 🟢 showing 1) light, 2) medium, 3) heavy, and 4) burnished Polychromos application.
I set aside some time today to re-purpose colorful watercolor scraps to make some tiny art.
Awhile back, I made this dotty watercolor test out of some new Winsor and Newton Professional Watercolors I bought. I can’t remember what colors I mixed to make the background. I had it left over from a different project. The other colors are all Winsor & Newton straight from the tube and the list is as follows:
Manganese Blue Hue – PB15
Rose Dore – PV19, PY97
Indian Yellow – PO62, PY139
I used my beloved Arches Rough Watercolor Paper, which I wrote about in detail in a previous post (click here).
These are the steps I took to re-purpose this tiny scrap that was too colorful for the wastebasket…
Polkadotting the frame
My Spellbinder Platinum manual die cutting machine gets a daily workout. If you make tiny art, this is an invaluable tool to make mounts and frames. To make this frame, I used steel rule nesting dies to cut the ideal size frame for my picture. I used Astrobrights 65 lb/176 gsm bright white cardstock.
I decided that I wanted to make it extra dotty, so I used a Faber-Castell small-nib (0.3mm) Pitt Artist Pen to make tiny dots on the frame. The cardstock holds up well – there was no bleeding on the other side.
Closeup of the pre-glued frame
After I finished dotting the cardstock, I used Tombow MONO Multi-Liquid Glue to adhere the frame to the picture. Now that it’s dry, I get to find a home for it in my scrapbook!
Testing, testing!Front of boxNib diameter (back of box)
I did a line chart of an 8-pack of black Pitt Artist Pens so I can quickly choose the pen I need. This little set is well-rounded and will suit your needs if you are traveling lightly.
Sorry about the fuzziness on the left hand side. My scanner wasn’t cooperating with me. I also blurred out my last name in case you are wondering about the the triangles and such.
After trying typical drawing paper for colored pencils (Bistol smooth/vellum, Strathmore colored pencil paper, etc.) and being unhappy with the results, I zoomed in on watercolor paper as a better option. The texturized surface and thickness of the cotton allow for more layers of color and fuller coverage.
There are so many brands and types to try, which is another reason I’m excited to use watercolor paper for colored pencil art. However, there were certain kinds I didn’t think would translate well. One of papers that I assumed would preform poorly was Arches Rough Watercolor. Spoiler alert: I loved it.
A block of Arches Rough.
As you can see from the picture below, Arches Rough is heavily texturized. I thought it would be too toothy for colored pencils, but it turned out to be an absolute joy to work with. The toothiness was part of the fun of application.
Here is my test strip, using the following brands of pencils: Carand’Ache Pablo, Caran d’Ache Luminance, Faber-Castell Polychromos, and Prismacolor Premier Soft Core. Refer to Part 1 of this series for a description of the pencils.
Colors (left to right) are:
Pablo – Grass Green
Pablo – Cobalt Blue
Luminance – Orange
Polychromos – Indanthrene Blue
Prismacolor – Dahlia Purple
Prismacolor – Spanish Orange
Polychromos – Cobalt Blue
Polychromos – Light Green
Luminance – Scarlet
Polychromos – Light Yellow Glaze
The verdict: all of the pencils performed well on Arches Rough. The wax-based pencils (Luminance and Prismacolor) worked the best. They applied like butter and resulted in full coverage. I was also able to get full coverage with the oil-based pencils (Polychromos and Pablo), but it took a bit more pressure. The paper allowed for multiple layers of color for each brand of pencil.
I will definitely keep Arches Rough Watercolor Paper on hand for colored pencil art. It isn’t a great everyday paper due to its unique finish, but it will be great for projects where you want to draw focus to highly-texturized objects.
Stay tuned for Part 3 on Stonehenge Aqua Cold Press watercolor paper!
I’m fairly new to colored pencil art and it’s been pretty easy to find review upon review of the best pencils. However, it’s been surprisingly difficult to find reliable information on the best paper to use to make them perform to their full potential.
Since I love experimenting with art supplies, I decided to do my own paper tests. I will be reviewing many types of paper and will share my thoughts here In my reviews, I will be using 4 different brands of artist-quality colored pencils:
Caran d’Ache Luminance
Caran d’Ache Pablo
Prismacolor Premier Soft Core
Faber-Castell Polychromos
Due to the composition of the cores (wax-based vs. oil‐based), I knew each product would preform a little differently on each type of paper. It’s important to know what your pencils are made of before choosing your paper. According to my research, the core composition of these 4 products is as follows:
Wax: Prismacolor Premier Soft Core
Oil: Faber-Castell Polychromos, Caran d’Ache Pablo.
Wax & Oil Blend: Caran d’Ache Luminance
The wax-based pencils tend to preform better on toothier, texturized paper while the oil-based pencils preform best on smoother papers. I’m going to try them all and let you know my thoughts. This exercise will be a great learning experience for me and I hope it will help you too.
Stay tuned for reviews. Sneak peek: the first up is Arches Rough Watercolor Paper.
Manual die cutting machines and nesting dies are a great investment if you enjoy papercrafting projects. My creative world totally changed when I got my Spellbinder Platinum machine and saw how perfectly uniform I could make swatch cards, easily cut different shapes of paper, and, relevant to my scrapbook project, make tiny frames for tiny pictures.
Let’s start with the dies…
Waffle Flower brand steel rule dies.
You will hear me talk about Waffle Flower a lot. They are a US company that works with designers to create unique stamps, dies, and other papercrafting products that you truly can’t find anywhere else. Today, I spent the afternoon cutting frames for my Scrapbook of Scraps project.
Frame made from Astrobrights cardstock.
After I made several frames, I got out some of my scraps to see what interesting compositions I could make with my sheets upon sheets of color-tester splats.
A bunch of QoR Watercolor splats waiting to be put to good use.
QoR watercolors are super-vivid so this page of tests has lots of potential to chop up into teeny-tiny pictures. I love the way the colors flow on this particular section, but I felt like it needed some Finetec Iridescent Watercolors to make it SPARKLE. Note that I haven’t glued the frame on yet. I was just using it to find my favorite color composition.
After I added some shine and let the paint dry, I cut it the little section out and glued it onto the frame.
Look at the sparkle! It reminds me of an eyeshadow pallette.
Here are two others that I finished today. These are re-purposed Sennelier test strips.
I haven’t glued any of them in my scrapbook yet because I’m not sure where I’m going to place them. Plus, I didn’t want to deal with anymore glue on my hands.
Stay tuned for my progress on the Scrapbook of Scraps!
I wanted an excuse to play with my new set of Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils so I did a quick color wheel for a ROYGBIV study.
Cheap bullet journal stencil sets have been an invaluable tool for making color swatches. I found a set on Amazon that was perfect for color wheels and this was the result. It took about two hours and I’m happy with the result.
I have a seemingly endless pile of color-test scraps in my studio that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. They are so bright that it would be a shame to see them in a trash can.
Papercrafting is one of my other favorite hobbies so I decided to assemble a scrapbook comprised primarily of literal scraps.
A tiny selection of my mountains of scraps
I chose a Ranger Dylusions Flip Journal because the pages are made of thick cardstock that will accept water and ink. I haven’t tested it yet, but I’m fairly certain that it won’t buckle or bleed based on the thickness and texture of the cardstock. I also liked it because it has a thick outer sleeve with an envelope attached to the inside. My only complaint about the journal is that the right-side corners are rounded which makes it difficult to put a decorative border on the edges.
I wanted to put a bright border on the inside and outside covers, so I painted ROY G. BIV squares using my beloved Sennlier L’Aquarelle paints on a long piece of Strathmore watercolor paper. I didn’t want to use thick cotton paper because I wanted to be sure the covers closed correctly.
Highly-pigmented, smooth, gorgeous Senneliers.
After the paper dried, I cut some 1″ wide strips to glue on the edge of the covers. It’s not perfect – I blobbed glue too heavily on one of the strips – but, despite the glue disaster, it turned out well.
Glue splat: lower left corner of the strip. *facepalm*Inside cover.Close-up of the inside cover. No glue blobs. I learned my lesson.
I’m probably going to put a few more things on the cover, but this was a fun Saturday project. Stay tuned for my progress!
The Color Chronicles 