Happy FunDay!
Welcome to the first color-along of the year! Since it is the year of the Rabbit, I found the cutest coloring page from Melissa Dawn at her Etsy store, Melissa Dawn Art and Design. Her store features printable art, coloring pages, SVG cutting files for the Silhouette or Cricut machines, and clip art. All coloring pages are in greyscale, and there are so many cat, bunny, and bird pictures; I want to do them all!
The drawings I chose are a collection of bunnies in teacups. There are three designs to choose from, “Blueberry Tea Bunny,” “Flower Tea Bunny,” and a bonus bunny in a teapot picture. These are downloadable, so you can print and color each page as many times as you would like, and they were only five dollars. Here is the link to that set of coloring pages if you plan to do the color along with me on Patreon. Make sure you select the “I Want To Relax” tier by the end of February when the full color-along videos are released.
Since these pictures remind me of vintage advertising, I wanted to give them a sun-faded appearance. Pastel pencils would be a great option. I found Arteza’s 50-count Pastels and decided to try them, but before I can start coloring, I need to swatch these pencils.
Once that is done, I can determine which colors I want to use on the pictures. Sit with me as I review the packaging, organization, colors, and overall performance of Arteza’s Pastel pencils.
Swatching Arteza Pastel Colors
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Packaging
These pencils came in a cardboard box, and when it arrived, it was a little crushed, and when I tried to open the box, I tore it. I don’t recommend keeping your pencils in this box since it is not very protective. When you open it, the cardboard sleeves do not hold the pencils tightly, allowing them to roll around and out of the box.
Swatch Sheets
Stacy Bledsoe has created so many types of swatching sheets that you could find one that suits your needs. My favorite is Swatch Book Style 1; you can cut these out and put on a ring or tie to store with your pencils, as I do.
There are numerous pre-filled swatch sheets for many of the brands and categories of pencils. I also saw that Stacy is currently updating and creating new Swatch Books and Charts for pencils, markers, and watercolors. She is also adding lightfastness ratings to some of the swatch sheets for those brands that offer that evaluation.
The pre-filled swatch sheets are so easy and convenient; all you need to do is add the color. However, if Stacy still needs to get one pre-made, there are blank swatch sheets you can complete yourself. And that is what we will be doing this time since she still needs the Arteza Pastels pre-filled sheet.
Arteza provides a swatch chart on the back of the cardboard box; however, laying the colors down on the paper you plan to use will better represent how the colors appear.
Color Order
Since the swatch sheet was blank, I first determined which color order I wanted the pencils before putting them in my carry case. The logical order, for me, was to start with the neutral colors, then yellow, orange, and so on. You can see the color order I used in the picture. Once I decided on the color order, I sorted from lightest to darkest. This is hard to do if you still need to swatch them out, so they did get a little out of order, especially when we get to the blues. If you have a better or more logical way to organize pencils, please use that and let me know what you did; I can use all the tips I can get.
Results
The weirdest thing happened when I swatched A630, which looked like a pretty apple green. There was red mixed in with the green pigment. When I initially sharpened the pencil, I may have sharpened a red pencil right before, and some of the lead got stuck to the green pencil. I resharpened the pencil a little to remove anything stuck to it, but it still had the red lying down with the green. My deduction is that it happened during manufacturing.
Positive:
- The triangle shape makes it easier to grip the pencil, and your hand doesn’t cramp like when you hold a circular pencil.
- The colors are beautiful. I loved all the colors except for one, A635.
- The price point under twenty USD for 50 pencils is a good deal.
Negative:
- It comes in a cardboard box that is easily crushable and doesn’t hold the pencils well. Separate storage is recommended.
- Some colors are faint.
- Color A630 is a pretty green; however, the red pigment was incorporated within the green, making it unusable.
- A623 was too hard to lay down any color.
- Some pencil colors can throw off a lot of “crumbs.”
- Do not keep a point; you will need to sharpen the pencil continually.
- Tips are easily breakable.
- You cannot order single pencil pencils, so you must buy the whole set to replace one color.
The fun part was cutting up that crushed box and creating the cover page. Check out my video to see how I did that.
So, there we are, another pencil set swatched and ready for coloring. See the full swatching video to hear more comments on each pencil color and additional details: