Sorting Neocolor II Crayons by Values

 

My Neocolor II crayons sorted by value

My Caran d’Ache Neocolor II wacky palette needed a shake-up. For my previous experiments, my selection had been mostly random and arbitrary. Now that I have a better idea of the concept of coloring by values, I decided to be a bit more systematic (but still in keeping with the wacky principles that I think Germanier was using when I was inspired).

After first eliminating colors I knew I wouldn’t enjoy using in a wacky way (black, browns and grays – especially in the dead of winter!), I sorted the remaining crayons by my perception of dark, medium and light values based purely on the crayon tips (above). As we know from water-soluble pencils, the dry hue can be a far cry from the water-activated color, but it was a rough cut.

From there, I picked out a cool and a warm from each of the three value ranges (below). (Whoa, this is getting way too systematic for an exercise I’m calling “wacky”! But dang if I’m not a color geek, through and through!) Considering my previous palette, I avoided repeating the same hues within the same value. I made test swatches to confirm that their water-activated forms still fit in the value range I saw in the crayon tips.

The palette I selected: A warm and a cool within each value. Pink (081) could fit in the medium range as well as the light, but I'll see how it works as a light.

I have no yellow this time! In my previous palette, yellow had served me well as a light value because it automatically signaled natural light. I felt a little nervous about that, but as I said, I needed a shake-up.

What an unusual way to pick a palette! Does it work? I guess we’ll both find out!

Temporary storage solution after sorting