I’ve been enjoying my graphite Aquarelle pencils so well that I bought some watercolor pencils to try them out.

I purchased 3 different sets of 12 pencils: Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer; Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle, and Derwent Inktense Pencil Set.

I used the pencils on my 300-lb watercolor paper, applying water afterwards. One thing I noticed is that each 12-pencil set has relatively similar colors. The Albrecht Durer set includes a white pencil which I don’t see a lot of use for — unless you’re using it on toned sketch paper? My initial thought is I was gypped, lol.

The Derwent Inktense pencils, once wetted, are clearly more intense than either the Faber-Castell or Caran d’Ache pencils. On the other hand, the Faber-Castells seem to wash more smoothly (for lack of a better term) in that my back-and-forth pencil lines are less obvious than the Caran d’Ache or the Inktense pencils.

Now I need to try them out on some drawings to see how I really like them.