The Best White Colored Pencil

Colored pencil artists, pastel artist and perhaps many other types of artists, are always on the lookout for the best, most opaque, white colored pencil, pastel pencil or whatever medium you are using. It seems, that everyone is seeking for the Holly-Grail of white opaque application, especially for colored pencil artists given the method of layering etc.

Now... I don't think I have found the best and finest white colored pencil, however, what I have done is to share my findings of twenty six different brands of white colored pencils. I would like to mention that some of the pencils I have included in this list are water soluble, which I know are not strictly colored pencils in the true sense of the form, never the less, I have seen colored pencil artists use the likes of Faber Castell's Albrecht Dürer white colored pencils, so I thought I'd include them.

Paper

Ordinarily, many people have done similar excellent reviews online of finding the best white colored pencils, however, the vast majority have conducted the test on just black paper. Well, I always try my best to bring something different to my reviews, I don't always get it right, but I do try.

For this test I have used both black and toned tan paper, the black paper is Winsor & Newtons black paper and it is beautiful quality, a nice rich black and just the right amount of tooth to the paper. The Toned Tan paper is none other than the awesome Strathmore Toned Tan paper. I have used so many of Strathmore's paper and I just can't get enough of their paper, Strathmore have an awesome range of different surfaces for all types of art and the different quality levels for each different surface, allowing the less well off among us to still obtain high quality paper.

26 White Colored Pencils

In exactly the same order that I have tested the pencils, I have listed below the twenty six white colored pencils that I used for this test.

Polychromos Coloured Pencils White Buy on Amazon

Winsor & Newton Black Paper

CARAN DACHE LUMINANCE 6901 COLOUR PENCIL White Buy on Amazon

Strathmore Toned Tan Paper Results

Conclusion

In this conclusion I will tell you the top 5 white pencils that I chose, however, these pencils are not necessarily the best white colored pencil because I really feel that one artists idea of an excellent white colored pencil, will almost certainly not be the same as another artist, and that is absolutely fine and right.

On the black paper from Winsor & Newton I chose and not in any order :

Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft II
Derwent Drawing
Holbein Artist
Caran d'Ache Luminance
Prismacolor Premier

On Strathmore Toned Tan I chose slightly differently :

Derwent Drawing
Holbein Artists
Caran d'Ache Luminance
Prismacolor Premier
Derwent Coloursoft

Prismacolor PC938 Coloured Pencils (White) Buy on Amazon

I have to say that it was very close with one or two other white colored pencils, but this is why I have added the images, so that you can see for yourself and chose the best you think. If the images are not enough, please follow the link to my YouTube video of me testing the white colored pencils. It is a long video, which is why I have added this written piece, so that viewers and readers can chose to either glimpse at the results on the images here or sit through quite a lengthy video demonstrating in real time.

I would also like to mention that I have reviewed all of the pencils tested on my YouTube channel and here on The Art Gear Guide, so if you want to see more about the pencil as a set, just search on the site and you will also get a better understanding of lightfast ratings for each white pencil.