Caran d'Ache Supracolor Metal Box Set Of 30

As a long-time fan of quality art supplies, I can confidently say that the Caran d’Ache Supracolor Watercolor Pencils are an absolute dream. These pencils strike a perfect balance between versatility, rich pigment, and ease of use, making them an essential tool for both professional artists and hobbyists alike. The color payoff is exceptional—vivid, smooth, and easily blendable. Whether dry or activated with water, the pigments maintain their brilliance without fading or becoming chalky. The pencils glide effortlessly on the paper, providing great control over fine details, but they also blend beautifully when washed with water to create soft gradients or bold, striking washes. One of the standout features is their excellent lightfastness. I feel confident that my work will remain vibrant over time, which is crucial for any serious artist. Additionally, the pencil leads are soft yet durable, meaning I’ve rarely encountered breakage even with heavy pressure. Whether I’m sketching quick ideas or creating detailed watercolor effects, the Supracolor pencils are incredibly responsive to whatever technique I’m using. They layer well and work harmoniously with traditional watercolors for mixed media work, making them a joy for experimentation. In terms of packaging, Caran d’Ache never disappoints. The sleek, elegant tins offer both practicality and a touch of luxury. It feels like you’re working with a premium product from the moment you open the set. Overall, these pencils are worth every penny and they are perfect for traveling. Highly recommended!

I would highly recommend this product to anyone who already owns Caran D'ache products, as their color system matches across product lines. If you don't own Caran D'ache or color matching is not a requirement for your work, for the best performance at the best price, I would recommend Albrecht Durer. Durer is extremely similar in quality but are a better price. If you have Albrecht Durer, and are thinking about getting these, you wont be disappointed by adding them to your collect, for sanity you may want to consider buying single colors that are missing from the Durer line. TLDR; While I really like Supra, I liked Albrecht Durer because of price and the colors have less granulation, which is a supper picky opinion since Supra's granulation is minuscule. ============== I tested these pencils against some of the popular and well respected lines, Caran D'ache Museum, Albrecht Durer, Burynzeel Aquarel, Prismacolor watercolor premier, Derwent watercolor pencils. The criteria: least ghost marks 'wash ability' or how well they activate with a water brush Granulation Staining Transparency Vibrancy Ghosting & wash-ability: I found zero ghost marks or marking of the paper after washing over the colors. I was able to use a stiff scrubber, watercolor brush, even a soft synthetic squirrel quill brush to activate the color. I was able to move every single color in this set. The colors are very consistent, no one color was more difficult then the others which is impressive. Granulation: Supra has slight granulation, it is very difficult to detect, you have to get up really close to see it. In back washes the granulation is more pronounced, like how you would expect ultramarine to granulate. Every color granulates, but I found every brand responds the same to back washes. This could be a con or a pro as a lot of watercolorists love to add texture with granulating colors. If that is your style I would suggest to practice back washes, if it isn't be careful to avoid them. Staining: Supra has some colors that are more staining then others, which I found was common for most brands. Getting back to the white paper is not worth the brush abuse for some colors, so its best to make color swatches and find the ones that stain. They are more permanent when completely dry and for me that is a pro because I like to do glazes. Once a wash is dry you can smooth the color out a bit more but I suspect the brush is just picking up pigment which wasn't dissolved in the first wash. Transparency: The colors dissolve extremely well, creating wonderful, predictable transparent washes. The color sticks to the paper and is less likely to get sucked up into your brush. Vibrancy: What you see in the dry form is what you get in a wash, there was no loss of vibrancy from the dry color to the wet color, they just got transparent. They won't beat out the best tube colors for vibrancy but they will preform better then student colors. I didn't compare Supra to traditional wax colored pencils, but they have nice handling qualities similar to a high quality pencil. Supra's have minimal dust and are not grainy, bits don't bust off littering your paper, waiting for your hand to brush over them and drag color where you don't want it. They don't seam to have much of a bloom, even when you abuse them by mashing them them into the tooth of the paper, you can still go over with a new color. They are soft and smooth. If you need them to hold a point you will find yourself shaping them with sand paper or sharpening them often. They don't blend very well when dry, I tried using the white pencil as a blender which only served to tint colors and feather edges. ======= Final notes ===== The only pencil that is debatably better then Ablrecht Durer or Supra would be Caran D'ache Museum pencil. Its debatable because due to the higher pigment content, Museums granulate even more then Supra and leave a slight ghosting on the page. Museum boasts a larger line of light fast colors and more pigment, but even at $4 a pencil (or 2.97 on sale D:) they wont outperform the best tube watercolors. Honorable mention, or if you prefer, fun yet budget friendlier, Derwent and Prisma were a coin toss. I found Prismas were more vibrant but sadly had more granulation and were difficult to wash, leaving light pencil marks. I prefer Derwent, they have almost zero ghosting, and a wider color range, but the trade off is less vibrant color.

I bought the set of 40 Supracolor watercolor pencils; I love the color range. The proof is in the pudding: I have been using these for one week, and I am in love with the vibrant colors in the results. I am interested in the more expensive Museum Aquerrelles; will have to save my pennies for those. I thought I would try these more affordable Supracolors first, to see what Caran d’Ache brings to the watercolor pencil game. I am very impressed. I prefer the Supracolor very much, over the Faber Castell Albrecht Durer pencils that I have been using. The Supracolor palette is right where I want it to be. The Supracolor palette is more “fruity” and the Albrecht Durer colors are more “earth tone.” Choose the palette that is right for you. Supracolor is wonderful for the illustration work I do. And now I am even more interested in trying the Museum Aquerrelle, when I win the lottery.

Caran d'ache is known for its excellence, though some lesser-priced products are likely to reflect the discount. I am a sometime amateur artist, indulging whenever there is time--and most people, stuck at home--are going to have plenty of time now for an old or new hobby (as the weeks pass, perhaps into months, hobbies that take up one's time could mean the difference between adapting to the "stay at home" edict or just losing it. Whatever takes your mind off the looming money trouble, health, whatever--is going to be a good investment if you can swing it). These watercolor pencils are, in my opinion as amateur artist, a bit pricey, but probably a good value nonetheless; the cheapest I could find them was Amazon, 40 pencils for $65. I have carpal tunnel, and am not finding the problems with these that I had with much cheaper, hard pencils; color goes on smoothly, and blends ok by brush with one caveat: Whether using regular watercolor brushes or the refillable plastic water brush, you need to do blending pretty quickly, if you don't want lines from the quick drying. It is very difficult to impossible to work lighter areas of delicate color once they are laid down, and adding more water will not get the pigment to blend out more--it will just create a damp spot or puddle. To be fair, as an amateur, I am not sure if this is a problem with all or most watercolor pencils--or whether it is simply one of the major challenges of watercoloring as medium. Thus, I try to stick with working on one area of paint blending until it is finished, and resist hopping around to multiple areas on the page. The set also has a good range of colors. Hope this is helpful.

These watercolor pencils are top notch. Easy to use, they add options to paint and brushes.

I'll start off my saying that I have a lot of water-soluble colored pencils -- everything from Crayolas to Albrecht Durer in quality. And I also have a lot of colored pencils in general - again, all kinds of quality. After using these Caran D'ache Supracolor water soluble pencils several times, I'm ready to provide some feedback. Yes, Caran D'ache is known as the top-of-the-line when it comes to colored pencils, so I had some pretty high expectations. And I know that water soluble colored pencils don't necessarily always live up to the quality of the regular (non-water-soluble) lines. For the price of these pencils, I was hoping that wasn't the case. I am happy to say that the Caran D'ache Supracolor pencils work wonderfully well. Naturally, I swatched them first and the colors of the swatch are pretty close to the colors of the pencils after the water is applied. Also, the colors dissolve nicely -- I am not left with blotches or graininess where the color doesn't completely disperse. Although I swatch on multimedia paper, I use these primarily in adult coloring books (which typically don't have artist-grade paper). Even in the adult coloring books, I find that the pencils perform well. Obviously they aren't the best choice when the coloring book has copy-paper-weight pages, but for paper that is heavier, I find these colored pencils perform well -- it doesn't take an ocean of water to disperse the color. If you are looking for a quality set of colored pencils, I would recommend this set.

My husband used these colored pencils 70 years ago as a child in Holland. We bought them for our son in California 35 years ago & we just purchased two boxes for our 6 & 7 year old girls. They are a fabulous quality pencil.

Compared to my Derwent watercolor pencils, I didn't need to use as much water with the Caran D'Ache pencils to eliminate any stippling created by the texture of the paper. Less water and fewer brush strokes add up to less damage to the paper, creating more versatility for blending colors. And greater color saturation, too, if that's something you're going for. If it's not, that's cool, too. They're versatile. Unlike Inktense pencils, which are also highly pigmented, these are true watercolor pencils and retain their blendability by lightly re-wetting the pigment after it has dried on the paper. I'm looking forward to putting these guys to use--the colors really put a smile on my face, despite my worn down disposition (I just broke my left pinky...x-rays: displaced spiral fracture of the proximal phalanx. It's my second hand fracture, different bone, but the pain is equally exquisitely intense, inconvenient, and frustrating. And may also need an open reduction and internal fixation. Nauseating, the pain is....) BUT I digress... these are way cool pencils. I don't think you'll regret buying them if you're already familiar with watercolor pencils. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised, like I was. Perhaps, anyways....