Product Review: Winsor & Newton Studio Collection Watercolor Pencils

Winsor & Newton Studio Collection Water Colour Pencils

When did Winsor & Newton get into the colored pencil business?

That’s the question that immediately sprang to mind when a set of water-soluble colored pencils bearing the British paint manufacturer’s name crossed my radar. I know that W&N came out with watercolor markers a while back, but pencils were new to me (and apparently so new that they aren’t even listed on W&N’s website yet; I found my set on eBay). Since the company is well-known for its professional watercolor paints, could it be that its Studio Collection of “soft, thick-core water colour pencils” could be of similarly high quality? At the price I paid (24 pencils for $11, plus a hefty shipping fee), I doubted it, but my curiosity was piqued.

(The Studio Collection also includes traditional colored pencils. After more digging, I saw that W&N also has a low-priced line of Reeves colored pencils and graphite drawing pencils, too. So it is apparently more in the pencil business than I realized.)

My set of 24 came in a compact tin with two stacked trays, which I prefer to the long, flat tins many colored pencils are packaged in. The bellyband states that they are “premium artist quality highly pigmented soft thick-core colour pencils” that are made in Vietnam. “Excellent lightfastness” is also listed, which gave me some hope that they might truly be artist quality.

The round, white barrel has a satin finish, and its dipped end cap indicates the pencil’s color. The Winsor & Newton logo and color name (no color number) are stamped in silver.

 

Round, white barrels with lovely dipped end caps.

The cores are, indeed, thick and soft (they remind me of Caran d’Ache Supracolor in softness and application). Making the initial swatches, I found the pigment content to be relatively high. Water activation brings out a decent wash without scrubbing.

 

Color swatches in Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Thick, soft cores

As I was examining the set, a vase of Tombow Irojiten pencils on my desk caught my eye. Hmmm . . . twins separated at birth?

 

Hmmm... 

A more productive comparison, however, is the barrel girth. In the photo at right, a green W&N pencil is shown next to a yellow Faber-Castell Polychromos and a maroon Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle. The W&N pencil is slightly slimmer than either one. In fact, it’s also thinner than the Irojiten and every round-barreled graphite pencil I could find at hand in my studio. The difference seems negligible, but I noticed it immediately because I found the pencils to be much less comfortable to hold, especially after drawing for a while. In addition, the slick, pearly finish makes the pencils somewhat slippery. (Granted, I am spoiled by the Museum Aquarelle’s larger and very comfy semi-hex barrel with a grippy matte finish.)

By this point, I had already decided that the Studio Collection could not be artist grade, mainly from the lack of color numbers and the bright pinks and purple in the set, which are typically not lightfast (and no lightfast rating appears on individual colors). In addition, I couldn’t find W&N pencils available open stock, which seems essential to be considered artist quality. (They are, however, brand new, so they may become available individually later.) But I’m not one to necessarily reject pencils simply because they aren’t archival or artist quality – I certainly own and happily use plenty of art materials that aren’t – as long as they have other redeeming qualities. And making sketches would be the only way to test for any such qualities.

 

5/1/19 W&N Studio Collection watercolor pencils in S&B Beta sketchbook

For my first sketch of the tomato, I worked in my typical fashion when using water-soluble pencils (sketch made in a Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook): I applied at least three layers of pigment in most areas, activating each with water before applying the next. Details and final lines were applied last and left unactivated. The large cast shadow was also left dry. When making the reflection on the tomato’s lower curve, I lifted some color out.

Despite my hunch that the pencils aren’t artist grade, I enjoy using them because they behave predictably – the way I expect water-soluble colored pencils to behave (Caran d’Ache Museum, Caran d’Ache Supracolor and Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer are my artist-grade yardsticks against which I compare all other watercolor pencils). In terms of pigment content, W&N pencils are probably comparable to student-grade Caran d’Ache Prismalo, but I don’t experience the difficulty in applying successive layers as I have with Prismalo (you can read about that issue in the Prismalo review).  

Last winter I had an unpleasantly surprising result in a test of Albrecht Durer pencils. Since then, to fully understand how a water-soluble pencil performs, I’ve decided it’s important to draw with it in its dry state without any water activation – that is, use it like a traditional colored pencil. With that in mind, I made a test sketch of the apple (in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook).

 

5/1/19 W&N Studio Collection watercolor pencils in S&B Epsilon sketchbook
(no water activation)

Half expecting them to behave badly, I was surprised by how pleasant the W&N pencils are when used traditionally. First and successive layers apply smoothly and blend well, especially on Epsilon’s surface. The hues are rich and true, even without activation.

While Winsor & Newton’s Studio Collection is not on the same level as Supracolors or Museum Aquarelles, I prefer them to Prismalo, Faber-Castell Goldfaber and other comparable water-soluble colored pencils. Imagine how good they might be if W&N decided to put out pencils of the same caliber as its artist-grade paints. (Though if it does, I’d want a thicker, grippier barrel.)

Hot Pot View

4/30/19 South downtown skyline from the International District

Although I’m not particularly enamored with it, like a gawking tourist, I still enjoy sketching Seattle’s skyline from various viewpoints. Queen Anne’s Kerry Park, Lake Union Park, West Seattle’s Jack Block Park, Bell Harbor Pier – each offers a unique downtown postcard.

Over lunch a few days ago, I was delighted to have an unexpected skyline view in the International District. Our window booth at Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot gave us this view of downtown’s south end high rises. As you know, I never sketch when I’m hungry, so you won’t see sketches here of the colorful ingredients (shrimp, fish, tofu, noodles and many types of veggies and mushrooms) that went into the boiling cauldron of delicious broth. But after thoroughly stuffing myself, my lunch companions were still stuffing (the hot pot meal is all-you-can-eat), so my dessert was this skyline sketch.

An all-you-can-eat, DIY meal!

A boiling cauldron of two kinds of broth --
one super-spicy hot, one wimpy.

Wisteria

4/30/19 Beacon Hill neighborhood

About a month ago, I showed you Tony’s lovely decorative cherry tree in full bloom. Now his trellised wisteria is at peak, so I went back to his Beacon Hill home for a chance to sketch the purple. Unlike cherries, I don’t seem many wisteria trees in these parts, so the grape-like clusters of blossoms were a new challenge. I wasn’t too pleased with this composition or the messy shadows, but it felt so good to sketch with the warm sun at my back that I could have been sketching a stone in the road, and I would have been just as happy.

Draping clusters of wisteria

More Studies with the Editing Pencil

4/28/19 Japanese maple in the Maple Leaf neighborhood

The tree above is a Japanese maple of the variety that stays red year-round. I admire it every time I pass it on my walks through the ‘hood. I knew it would make an ideal study with a red/blue editing pencil because it’s the type of subject matter I have the most difficulty with in showing values.

The leaves grow in umbrella-shaped clusters, the tops of which are illuminated while the underneath parts are in shade. Each leaf casts a shadow on the leaves below it. In addition, one side of the tree is more in shade than the other, but in the early afternoon, the top of the tree is fully lighted. The difference in value between the sunny leaves and the shaded leaves is subtle, and when I try to sketch something like this with realistic colors, I usually don’t use enough contrast.

Normally I would probably sketch the entire tree in its illuminated colors first, then go back in with darker colors to put in the shaded areas. With the editing pencil, however, I tried it backward: I first used blue to draw all the leaves, the trunk area and limbs that I saw in shade. I don’t know if it’s just a mind trick, but for some reason, it was easier for me to see the shaded areas when I knew I was coloring them blue. Then I used red to draw all the leaves and slim areas of branches that faced the light.

Given all the many simple fruit still lives I’ve practiced the past couple of winters, I’ve gotten better at seeing and indicating the shaded side. But it’s still not always easy for me to see the subtly curvy shaded side of a pear and to use realistic colors to convey it. Although the pears below are two different pears sketched on different days, I think the one using blue to indicate the shaded side is a more accurate modeling of the change in the pear’s curve compared to the one made with realistic colors.

4/25/19 red Bartlett pear

4/27/19 red Bartlett pear

First S&B Zeta Filled

My first filled daily-carry Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook

One of my blog rituals has been to show each completed sketchbook and the covers I made for it after I had filled enough signatures to bind them together. Now that I’ve decided to use Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbooks as my daily-carry instead of hand binding, I didn’t want to miss that ritual of closure and completion. It’s not the same with a store-bought sketchbook, so I probably won’t do this every time. But since it’s the first off-the-shelf, daily-carry sketchbook I’ve filled in a long time, it feels worth noting. It’s also a good opportunity to see how the pros and cons have shaken out, now that I’ve used 52 pages in a month:

Pros:

• As I’d hoped, the paper is the biggest benefit of this change in my sketchbook. I appreciate Zeta’s smooth surface and substantial weight; it is a joy to use with all my favorite media: colored and graphite pencils, markers, brush pens, ballpoints, fountain pens. (Surprisingly, as much as I loved it during nearly six years of use, I don’t miss Canson XL’s cold-press surface after all.)
• The 5½-by-8½-inch page format is comfortable for all the compositions I typically make. My handmade signature’s 6-by-9-inch page gave me a half-inch more on each side that I thought I might miss, but I don’t. I don’t even notice the loss.
• I also got used to the slight additional weight and bulk of the S&B book. I am, however, more conscious than ever of keeping the rest of my bag as slim as possible.

I had initially rejected this Derwent waterbrush for normal use, but its overly
generous tendencies are just right for pre-wetting the paper.

Cons:

• The difference in surface sizing took some getting used to, and I don’t consider it ideal for wet media. After running into problems early in the book, I stopped spraying the surface to wet it evenly before spreading color – a quick trick I’ve been using for years. Now I use a clean waterbrush to do the job. (It’s a Derwent waterbrush, which I had initially rejected for normal use because it releases too much water. But it’s ideal for this specific task.) I can still use a spritzer for my foliage technique.
• The only thing I miss about not using handmade signatures is that I can’t fold back the side I’m not using. S&B’s softcover binding is somewhat flexible, but not flexible enough to fold back. It’s slightly more cumbersome to hold the entire book open, especially when standing, but I’m tolerating it.

Overall, I’m pleased with the change and happier than I expected to be with the paper. Every sketchbook choice requires compromises, but the Zeta requires very few. It just goes to show that sometimes a sketchbook shakeup is exactly what I need.

Using a store-bought sketchbook has one more benefit that I hadn’t even thought of: Cracking open a fresh, new book. I know some sketchers feel some anxiety about all those clean, blank pages staring back at them. But now that I’ve just peeled the wrapper off my next Zeta, I feel nothing but anticipation: All the sketches just waiting to be made.

Stillman & Birn Zeta takes everything with aplomb.

Red/Blue Pencil: the Ultimate Minimalism?

4/24/19 Wedgwood neighborhood

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m always looking for ways to minimize my sketch kit, even if my attempts are more hypothetical than real. Both last winter and this year, I included a red/blue editing pencil in my minimal kit simply because it conveniently enabled me to carry two colors in the space of one stick. But I had it all wrong.

I’m starting to learn that the real talent of a red/blue editing pencil is that it may be the ultimate minimal sketch kit. I’ve been using bicolors to help me see and interpret values more accurately, and the red/blue pencil is proving to be an excellent tool for that. While a single graphite pencil could be used to study values (Eduardo Bajzek’s workshop was all about that), it takes me a long time to express a full range of values that way. Using red and blue together, on the other hand, works like a shortcut in getting that job done. I’m diggin’ it!

The house below in the Green Lake neighborhood (which you saw a while back in ballpoint from a different angle) was actually yellow (another mind-bender for literal me), and the roof was dark gray. Since both the front and the rooftop were in sunlight, I could have made the roof red also, but it was still darker than the yellow siding, so I made it blue. I also liked the contrast between the red and blue, which was in keeping with the warm yellow front and the cool gray roof.

4/27/19 Green Lake neighborhood

4/26/19 Seattle Center

Of course, the red/blue concept as I’ve been using it – with red representing warm/lighter values and blue representing cool/darker ones – works best when both light and dark are easily apparent. In the sketch below (which you saw a few days ago), I realized after I began that the composition I chose was all in shade, so it ended up a mostly monochrome sketch. In fact, I pulled out my much darker Prussian blue Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencil to give the paler bicolor blue a hand with the darks. Ironically, the green grassy field between the machinery and the Space Needle was in full light – so I had to color it red!

One more irony: Although I worked as an editor for more than 30 years, I never used these red/blue pencils for editing. It’s never too late to find the right tool for the job.

Top: vintage Mitsubishi red/blue editing pencil; bottom: contemporary version. The contemporary vermilion is a touch warmer than the vintage red, but they are otherwise identical in look and feel.

Like Speeding, it’s OK As Long As You Don’t Get Caught

4/8/19 He was fairly far away, which made it easier to avoid detection.

While I was feverishly drawing people during the #OneWeek100People2019 challenge, some followers (non-sketchers) on social media inevitably asked me if I have ever been caught by a “victim” while sketching them. (This is also a major concern of unseasoned sketchers who feel self-conscious sketching in public.) I am proud to say that, in my seven-plus years of sketching several hundreds of people by now, I have never yet been caught or confronted.

How do I do it? Mainly, I’m fast, so I don’t linger or stare long at any one victim. Here are some other practical tips:

4/12/19 OK, she was easy -- she was dozing.

• Choose victims who are engrossed in their phones, laptops or (sadly, rarely) books. They will never notice you. Even if they are not engrossed, most people are busy inside their own heads and don’t care what you are up to.
• One caveat about the above tip: People who are in the middle of a text conversation tend to type quickly, then look around while they are waiting for the other person to respond. I watch for this rhythm, and I time my own glances at the victim to match the moments that they look back at their phones.
• In general, men are more oblivious than women. I think women are generally more aware of others in public places and tend to sense if someone is looking at them for longer than a glance. Women are easier to sketch if they are engaged in conversation.
• Easy victims are those whose profiles you can see – you are outside their peripheral vision. Even easier, of course, are the ones facing away from you completely.
• Avoid “head bobbing” (as Liz Steel calls it); the frequent, unnatural motion attracts attention. Liz suggests glancing up and then working from memory to avoid bobbing. My approach is to simply lift my eyes instead of my head.
• If your victim starts to look up, and you sense that you are about to be noticed, quickly look away, then write rapidly in your sketchbook. You will look like you’re journaling.

4/11/19 Fully engrossed and even occasionally smiling at what he was seeing.

4/17/19 In the background, you can see my victim at fairly
close range. He was reading a book (!) as I sketched him.
I was impressed by his beard.