Elzybells stocking Koh-i-noor

[blarf]

And more, there's a lovely demo on colouring and shading on her blog too.

I'm beginning to wonder if my Derwent pencils aren't as good as some I could've got.

[Mothership]

Are you wondering about Aqua Tone or Inktense? Both of which are water soluble, so can be used for effects such as washes and splattering which cannot be acheived with the the Koh-i-noor sticks which need either a spirit (Sansodor) or baby oil to blend them.

Koh-i-noor are closer in effect to Prismacolors in that the colour needs to be laid onto the paper directly and then blended. The colours are more intense allowing a greater depth more easily.

As they all have different applications and with the special offer at Elzybells I'd say if you can afford then go for these on top of any other colours you already have. :)

[blarf]

Coloursoft pencils mothership. they're good but if wonder if they're good enough :D

[Phree]

Coloursoft are the Derwent equivalent of the Koh-i-noor / Prismacolours / Polychromos. All of these colour pencils are Artist Quality and made by reputatable manufactures. I rather suspect that when it comes down to making final choices then in the end experienced users decisions will be based on subjective rather than objective arguments - such as I have always used "brand X" and get on well with them so why would I try another. Or I bought "Brand Y and managed to break several so now I choose Brand Z" - the problem with brand Y could have been simple bad luck.

[blarf]

Thanks Phree, I never seem to get as smooth a finish as I want and the blending oil doesn't go as far as it should, could it be my stumps/cotton wool buds? I have exceptionally smooth card so I don't think it's that.

[Mothership]

This is a brand I've never used, but Derwent is a premier brand so stick with them. It's now a matter of practice and experiment. :)

I remember that initially I would use the tip of the stump expecting that the spirit would go down like a pen, it doesn't, it evaporates.
Not having the internet at that time my daughter, donin' art GCSE, put me right.

Once I started using the side of the tip of the stump for most of my blending it went a lot further.
You might find that this could help even your finish out as well. :)

Personally I'm not crazy about using a cotton-bud as this seems to drop the spirit onto the paper and spreads out beneath the colour so you can end up with a halo and you have to use an awful lot to concentrate it to where you want it.

Try using different papers as well until you find one that suits, I use Daler-Rowney 150gsm smooth cartridge paper, it takes Versafine well and is smooth enough to blend colours out, I use Karismacolors and Prismacolors.

[Phree]

Hi Sammy, I rather suspect you need to experiement some more - are you wetting the stumps enough with the Low Odour Mineral spirit? Have you tried other papers in your stash? Are you perhaps being too sparing with the amount of colour you lay down from the pencil before you start blending?

I can't comment on using cotton buds - never tried em myself as I find they are too bulky. But what I do do is go over the colour first with the wet stump to sorta liquify it and then blend out from there if you see what I mean.

I know fabyon has Coloursoft pencils and he has some Prismacolors and he finds the CS ones every bit as good as the Prisma's. I havn't tried CS myself (yet) but I suspect your problem is simply you need to play around a bit more - maybe you are expecting the colour to slide just too far as you blend, or letting your stump get to try before dipping it back into the LOMS.

[LoobyLou]

I use prismas, and polychromos, and actually find the polys blend differently to the prismas depending on what cardstock and what stumps I am using.

I would also recommend blending on a truly flat surface. I found that I was struggling because I had it on a slightly roughened surface, so even though the CS was super smooth I was not getting the finish I wanted.

Looby