Castle Art Supplies Coloured Pencil Review
Castle Art Supplies Coloured Pencil Review
Before I get into the review I have to tell you quite a funny… or at least interesting story about the Castle Arts coloured pencils and the company. Ordinarily, I don’t watch the reviews from other reviewers if I haven’t reviewed the product myself; the reason for this is simply that I don’t want to be influenced, even if it is subconsciously, about the product when it comes to my own review. I wan’t to know beyond shadow of a doubt that the review is completely my own thoughts and words. However, with the Castle Arts Coloured Pencils, for some reason I thought they were American based and thus would find it difficult to source the pencils for my own review, so I had a quick peek at one or two reviews of the pencils from reviewers I personally enjoy and trust. It was on these reviews that I heard excellent reports of the pencils and so I knew I really needed to get my hands on a set.
Despite the glaringly obvious spelling of Colour on the tin indicating they were UK based, I took a look on Amazon and found a 120. When the set was delivered, as soon as I opened it I took a quick glance through the pamphlet inside, something I don’t ordinarily do, however, to my amazement, I discovered that the address for the companies HQ was literally round the corner from our house, within five minute walking distance. I thought I would send an email to the company and share our small world coincidence. Much to my surprise a day or so later, I received a wonderful email from one of the co owners, suggesting we meet up in the New Year.
We met up and spoke at length on matters concerning myself and how I got involved in art etc, how Castle Arts got going, some of the plans for the company and so much more. It was a wonderful experience, chatting to the owner and I learned so much from the meeting. Among so many things, one thing I learnt was the companies willingness and ability to listen to their customers and implement change where possible to suite, but I will discuss this further into the review. I would just like to make it clear that although I met up with one of the owners and had a chat, I am not sponsored or being paid by Castle Arts, I have never accepted payment or sponsorship in the past nor would I ever do so in the future, certainly not for my reviews. I have met up with a few art supply companies in the past and listened to their plans and offered advise when requested to do so, however, I feel if I was ever paid or sponsored, I am sure that I would display some sort of bias even if it was subconsciously, like it or not, it is a human flaw which is why I try to avoid it at all costs in my work.
Castle Arts 120 Coloured Pencil Set Giveaway
At the end of this review, I will provide a link that will enable you to take part is this fantastic giveaway, you will have the chance to win a brand new set of 120 Castle Arts Coloured Pencils and hopefully after reading this review, watching the YouTube review and watching my speed drawing to accompany the review, you too will be excited to own such a fantastic set of coloured pencils.
Castle Arts Coloured Pencils Availability
When I first became aware of Castle Arts Coloured Pencils, there was only a 72 set available, however, as time has progressed, they have expanded their coloured pencil range to a whopping 120 set. As things stand currently, the 72 and 120 sets are the only sets available, however, as I briefly eluded, Castle Arts have huge plans for the future.
As with so many large sets of coloured pencils in this price range, there are no open stock pencils. Again, this is something that the company may look into but as things currently stand it is only the two sets. They have two 72 sets, one in a traditional tin and the other comes in a canvas zip wallet, which so many colored pencil artists love to keep their pencils in. The larger set of 120 only comes in the tin.
Coloured Pencils are not the only product that Castle Arts manufacture, much to my surprise they cater to a wide audience of artists which is beautifully illustrated in the pamphlets supplied within the sets. You can also locate their stock list on their website but this is just a taste of what they have on offer. Watercolour Pencils, Drawing Pencils, Graphite Sketch Pencils, Watercolor Paints, Oil Paints, Gel Pens and Acrylic Paints.
Castle Arts Coloured Pencils Specifications
Castle Arts refer to their pencils as Premium Soft Touch, which if you have been following my reviews here on The Art Gear Guide, you know that I am not a huge fan of simply pigeon holing colored pencils as wax or oil based and it would appear that Castle Arts are of a similar mind set. Of course I am not saying that wax and oil based pencils don’t exist because they do, but it is just not as simple as wax or oil due to all the other ingredients in the pencil core.
On some of the reviews I watched about Castle Arts pencils, the comparison to Prismacolor was made quite a bit, however, I can only tell you what I find. The core of the Castle Arts Coloured Pencils is definitely in the soft grade, when applying the pigment, it was clear just how smooth and creamy the pencils laid down, however they were incredibly contradictory of themselves but in a really good way.
Top Layer Castle Art Coloured Pencils
So with a really nice soft core pencil, you would expect to come across one or two issues such as blooming, the pencils inability to retain a sharp point and perhaps excessive crumbling, however this was not the case with the Castle Arts Coloured Pencils.
With regards to the Prismacolor comparison, the softness of the core is about where the comparison stops. There is absolutely no shattering of the core whatsoever. I used almost all of the reds, greens and browns in my speed drawing artwork for this review and sharpened the pencils a lot with not one shattering or breaking.
Second Layer Of Castle Art Coloured Pencils
Despite the soft creamy core, the core of the Castle Arts Coloured Pencils held its point considerably well, there was little to no crumbling. Even when I applied heavy applications with some of the pencils, you could clearly see a bit of crumbling in the demonstration, but nothing drastic at all. When layering I passed a significant number of layers without encountering bloom or waxy resistance.
Third Layer Castle Art Coloured Pencils
The Castle Art pencil sports a striking 7mm Black Matt finish barrel, held safely within the barrel is an exciting 3.8mm core bursting with generous levels of pigment. On the end of every Castle Art pencil is a 1 and 1/4 inch pigment identifier, clearly making the pigment within that particular pencil, which also makes pigment selection visually a pleasure. Separating the Black Matt barrel and the pigment identifier is a painted silver ring.
The Castle Art pencil is a round barrel which I know colored pencil artists are very much split on, between round and hexagonal barrels, unfortunately it is one of those areas that not every one is going to be happy. Printed along one side of the barrel in Silver leaf the pigment name followed slightly further along the barrel in the pigment identifier flash is a number which corresponds to the pigment.
On the opposite side of the barrel is printed the company logo and the company name “Castle Art Supplies”; slightly further along in the pigment identifier flash is printed “Soft Series” indicating the soft core.
Over all the Castle Art pencils have quite a premium look to them with the subtle Black Matt finish on the barrel. Also they are well balanced, I know when I talk about the weight of a pencil and how it feels in the hand, I am sure there are people out there thinking, “My goodness Harry how heavy can a pencil be?” and I wouldn’t blame them. However, it is more about just how the pencil feels in the hand, overall comfort.
I briefly mentioned at the beginning of the review that the company really take into consideration what their customers want, within reason, one example of this is the trays that the pencils are placed on. Currently the plastic trays have little pinch grooves to help the artist lift them out of the tin, however, some customers told the company that they don’t like this method and prefer string loops. So going forward, the company will be adding both methods for lifting out the trays. this is only one example but it shows how valuable the company holder their customers and they want to please as many people as they can. Nobody is going to please every one, but they are certainly trying.
Castle Art Coloured Pencils Performance
As always, I have completed all the standard test that I complete on all my colored pencil reviews, as I have mentioned, the core of the Castle Art Coloured Pencils is creamy and soft, but not too soft were it is crumbling, losing a point after a layer or breaking when sharpening.
My testing overall with the Castle Art Coloured Pencils was incredible and so taking into consideration the pricing of the pencils, which we will talk about in a second, I really delved deep, trying to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything and that my pleasant meeting with the owner was not clouding my judgment, but the results were all the same. If I was really pushed to nit pick and find a flaw, it would be this.
None of the pencils I used shattered or broke when sharpening, which was fantastic, however, there was a corsness to the actual wood of the barrel when using a manual sharpener, which seemed to cause some friction. Whenever sharpening using a hand crank sharpener, there was no issue at all, to see a demonstration of what I am referring to, check out the YouTube Video Review.
Layering With Castle Art Coloured Pencils
Layering with the Castle Art Coloured Pencils was a simple and pleasurable experience. I completed six light layers in my test and I always stop around the five or six Mark for layering as this is generally considered the level of layers for Odourless Mineral Spirits to work effectively. Because OMS breaks down the pigment etc into a painterly effect, the more layers of pigment you have the better the end results, hence the test.
As you can see from the image of the layering exercise, after six light layers, you can still see the tooth of the paper indicating that more layers could have been applied and I know this is partly to do with the paper, but it is also to do with the quality of pigment and binders used.
I also completed one heavy application of Castle Art Coloured Pencil and you can also see in the image the creamy consistency achieved and the depth of color from that one layer.
Blending With Castle Art Coloured Pencils
I grabbed a few primary colors and blended them together in order to see what the blending ability of the pencil was. In this case I blended a Blue and Yellow which as you can see from the image resulted in a really nice and clear green.
I used the same yellow and red, after layering with a few light layers and then blending the colors in the form of burnishing and again as you can see from the image, a nice orange was created.
I also tested the black, as all colored pencil artists know, using black is a color we try to stay away from and opt for a more natural method to create dark shadows. However, the Black in the Castle Art selection has a brown tint to it which I personally feel lends itself to being a much more natural black on its own.
Castle Art Coloured Pencils On Black Paper
I always try to demonstrate colored pencils I am reviewing on Black paper, this test will show the levels of opacity or opaqueness, it is also a good opportunity for testing and seeing the white. You can see for yourself in the image that the Red is not very opaque as you can still see black from the paper below. The other colors, Blue, Yellow and Green, especially the Blue are incredibly opaque, as for the White, I thought it performed quite well.
The 120 set has a really excellent selection of colours, if I was really being nit picky, I would maybe like to see two of the greens and two of the blues removed and perhaps grey or browns replace them. I only say this because the greens selection is really gorgeous and the same for the blues, however there is only a six browns not including the yellow ochres which I know can fall into the brown genre. there is what appears to be three cool grey and three warm grey so maybe one of each added. But as I say, I am seriously seriously nit picking, in fact as I read this back to myself I am wincing and the whinging tone to my words.
Castle Art Coloured Pencil Lightfast Information
As we have discussed many times before, the lightfastness of colored pencils is not absolutely essential for all artists, the only time Lightfastness is going to play an important part in the pencils you use, is if you are doing a commission for a client or entering a competition or just generally doing a piece that you would like to frame and hang on a wall, be it for yourself or someone else.
Other than the situations mentioned above, Lightfastness is not essential. For those of you new to colored pencils and may not know what Lightfast means. There are different levels of lightfastness available in certain colored pencils in fact art supplies in general and this means that the pigments you are using will not fade after a few months and the Lightfastness guarantees your beautiful art work will not fade, sometime for one hundred plus years.
Castle Art Coloured Pencils do not have any lightfast ratings attributed to them and that is pretty common in pencils of this price bracket. Pencils that are lightfast tested will cost a significant amount of money and the reason for this is due to the fact that the pencil companies have to pay a lot of money for either of the lightfast testing standards to conduct such testing.
Castle Art Coloured Pencil Pricing
Here in the UK, to purchase Castle Art Coloured Pencils on Amazon, you can expect to pay the follow. For the 72 Tin Set of Castle Art Supplies Coloured Pencils you will pay approximately £21.99, to purchase the 72 Zip Wallet Set you will have to pay approximately £29.99 and then for the largest set of 120 Castle Art Coloured Pencils, you can expect to pay £42.99.
For those of you in the US For the 72 Zip Wallet set of Castle Art Coloured Pencils you can expect to pay approximately $32.99 for the 72 Tin Set of Castle Art Coloured Pencils, you will pay approximately $24.99 and finally for the 120 set of Castle Art Coloured Pencils you will pay approximately $54.
For those colored pencil artists or enthusiasts in Europe you can expect to pay the following, for the 72 Zip wallet set of Castle Art Coloured Pencil €29.99, for the 72 Tin set of Castle Art Coloured Pencils approximately €32 and for the 120 set of Castle Art Coloured Pencils you could pay €42.99
Something Extra From Castle Art Coloured Pencils
So as an added bonus, Castle Art have added a little something in every art product you purchase from them. All of the art work on the front of the packaging for Castle Art was done by their in house resident artist, so, Castle Art have included a simple follow along tutorial of the particular art work displayed on the product you purchase.
In the case of the 120 set of Castle Art Coloured Pencils there is a beautiful drawing of a castle using the exact pencils from that 120 range, so they have printed a simple follow along tutorial of the castle for you to try as and when you are ready.
Castle Art Supplies have provided the ability for you to submit your work to their website and showcase what you have managed to accomplish with your new colored pencils. I personally think this is a fantastic idea and it is a tremendous way of getting new and young artists involved in the online art community.
Castle Art Supplies Coloured Pencil Conclusion
First of all I was absolutely thrilled to meet up with the co-owner of the company and listen to their plans for the future. After listening to what the company had to say, I can really se Castle Art Supplies moving in the right direction within the art community.
I personally really enjoyed using the Castle Art Coloured Pencils and other than the slight friction when sharpening the pencils with a manual sharpener, I really can’t fault them. To better understand the Castle Art Coloured Pencils you can also watch my botanical speed drawing using the pencils, as well as this you can take a look at the YouTube video review of the pencils and finally the page of still images of the art work at various stages of completion, allowing the viewers to inspect the product outcome on their own time.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS
I am also giving away a brand new set of 120 Castle Art Coloured Pencils. In order to enter, you need to follow the link to my YouTube video review of the pencils and leave a comment under the video. the only reason this is necessary is due to the software I use to select at random the winner.
If you could and if you enjoyed the video, please leave a like and perhaps share the video on your own social media platforms to get more people involved, although this is not necessary. The winner will be announced on the 10th of March 2020 and you can enter no matter where in the world you live.
