There are a lot of different colored pencils on the market today. A lot of us find a favorite and stick with that, but many others use different brands. So today, I’d like to talk about mixing colored pencil brands.
Specifically, how do you figure out which brands work best together?
Mixing Colored Pencil Brands
Figuring out how the different brands of pencils work together is really a matter of experimenting. So much depends on your drawing style and the paper you use, that there is no simple answer.
Also, the combinations of pencils that work best for me may be total disasters for you.
However, I can share two basic guidelines to help you get the most out of your experimentation.
Guideline #1: Wax-Based and Oil-Based
There are two basic types of pencils: Wax-based and oil-based.
All colored pencils contain some wax and some oil in the binding agent that holds the pigment together. But wax-based pencils have a higher percentage of wax in the binding agent. Oil-based pencils have a higher percentage of oil.
But the important point for this discussion is that because all colored pencils contain some oil and some wax, they all work together.
How well they work together depends in large part on the quality of the pencils. And that leads me to the next basic guideline.
Guideline #2: Scholastic, Student, Artist
Colored pencils come in three basic grades or levels of quality.
Scholastic grade pencils are the type of pencils you most likely used in grade school. They’re very inexpensive because they contain less pigment than higher quality pencils. Many times, the pigment is also less expensive and often lower in quality than the pigments used in higher quality pencils.
Does that mean you can’t make fine art with them? No. You can make fine art with scholastic grade pencils, but it probably will take more effort.
Artist grade pencils are the highest quality colored pencils on the market. They contain more pigments than scholastic grade pencils, and the pigment is often higher quality. That means it’s usually more lightfast than the pigment in scholastic grade pencils. They are also more expensive than scholastic pencils, but most fine artists believe the extra cost is worth it. I certainly do.
Student grade pencils fall between scholastic and artist grade pencils. They are higher quality and more expensive than scholastic grade pencils. They are lower quality and less expensive than artist grade pencils. These pencils are often used by artists who are serious about their colored pencil art, but haven’t yet reached the skill level at which they want to use the best pencils.
You can mix all three grades together and they will work adequately. Results will be mixed, however, so if you do try mixing grades, do a little testing before you use them on anything that’s important to you.
Mixing Colored Pencil Brands
Once you get to the artist grade pencils, you can pretty much mix brands without technical problems. All the artist quality brands work well together. Even wax-based and oil-based pencils work well together. That’s why so many artists chose the pencils they use based on color rather than brand. Just take a look at the colored pencil showcase for 2024, and you’ll see what I mean. A lot of those artists used more than one brand to create their artwork.
I’m fairly brand specific in my preferences, but if one brand has a color that’s not available in my favorite brand, then I use the best color.
But this is where personal preference comes into play. Not every artist likes using wax-based pencils, because they’re so soft and often break easily. Nor do all artists like using oil-based pencils because they can feel dry going onto the paper. Does that mean you’re stuck using only one brand of your favorite type?
Not at all! There are enough brands in both types to satisfy the color requirements of most artists.
The Bottom Line
The real bottom line on all of this is that you have to figure this out for yourself.
You don’t need to buy full sets of every brand to experiment. All you need are few colors of a few brands to begin
. See how different combinations of pencils work on the paper or papers you like to use. Do some sketching. Make color swatches.
It doesn’t really matter how you experiment, so long as you put pencil marks on paper in different combinations. It’s my guess that it won’t take very long before you figure which pencils mix bet for you!
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