Bruynzeel Expression Coloured Pencil Review
Bruynzeel Expression Coloured Pencil Review
I have reviewed quite a few Bruynzeel or Royal Talens products and today I have another one for you. Previously I had reviewed the Bruynzeel Design Pastel Pencils, Coloured Pencils and Aquarelle Pencils, the Design range is considered Bruynzeel’s Artist quality. Below the Design range in terms of grade according to Royal Talens is the Museum collection, this was a specially selected few sets of pencils put together to honour some of the old Dutch Masters, I have previously reviewed a set from this range the Rijks Museum.
Below the Museum is the Creatives, which I would slot in among student grade and this is where the Expression pencils fit in that I am reviewing today. Bruynzeel actually have a range below this called the College range which I have a set of pencils from to review at another time soon. Finally below the College range is the Kids range which I will be posting a review of as soon as I have compiled my review regarding children’s art supplies. However, this gives you a general outline of the ranges within the Bruynzeel line up, of course under the Royal Talens banner there are a lot more but I don’t want to confuse matters to much, it has taken me months of trying to work out all these sets and which line
Bruynzeel Expression Characteristics
The Bruynzeel Expression pencil is a really attractive pencil and I know that the way a pencil looks has little to do with it’s performance, nevertheless there is nothing wrong with having a professional looking set of pencils on the desk and in your hand whilst creating a masterpiece.
The body of the Bruynzeel Expression pencil is wood based with the grain on display, however, although the barrel is clearly a wood barrel, and I know this is going to sound a bit weird, but there is a plastic feel to the barrel. It almost feels like the barrel is flexible which is clearly isn’t and when you sharpen the Bruynzeel Expression it does so incredibly smoothly.
The barrel is a hefty 7.6mm and although it is technically a hexagonal barrel, the shape is subtle and almost feels round. the barrel holds a well pigmented 3.3mm core which provides an incredibly soft lay down, initially the core feels how you might expect a wax pencil to feel but it feels and on close inspection looks a little bit more oil may be in the ingredients. However, as I have mentioned many times before, try not to get too wrapped up in the Wax and Oil debate, at least that has been my experience.
Running along the barrel from core to end cap, the company brand name “Bruynzeel” is printed in clear black print, closely followed by the company origins “Holland”; then the pencil type or brand which in this case is “Expression Colour”, finished of with a different number printed on each barrel.
Each pencil in the Bruynzeel Expression range has an eloquent silver band separating the barrel and the pigment identifier on the very end of the pencil. The Pigment identifier is approximately an inch long and is representative of the core pigments. Bruynzeel have added a pretty cool insignia to the pigment identifier in the form of the “b” pencil logo that is on the front of the tin also. I think this adds a really cool touch to the pencil and from what I have seen over the past few years, Bruynzeel or Royal Talens are breathing new life into their brands, giving them a much more stylistic design flair.
Unfortunately there is no pigment name available on the barrel of the pencil, now normally I don’t get too bent out of shape about this, providing they have a list of chart on their website with the pigment names, yet this is not the case. There is a color chart of the Bruynzeel Expression on their website, however the chart only lines up with the numbers that are printed on the barrels.
Ordinarily this would be okay for ordering open stock pencils, but the Bruynzeel Expression are not sold open stock so I am not sure why the numbers exist. As artists we are always used to creating our own color swatches yet for the Bruynzeel Expression you are going to have to make up your own names in line with the numbers when creating your own color chart.
I personally don’t think it is super important for the pigment name to be printed on the barrel, I would love all pencils to have this on their barrels and it absolutely would be beneficial; nevertheless, if they are going to leave this off the barrel, there still needs to be a reference to the pigment name somewhere, either on a website or packaging.
Bruynzeel Expression Sets Available
As I mentioned, the Bruynzeel Expression Series is aimed at, what Bruynzeel call, Creatives. This really means sketch book work, adult colouring books, crafters, students and I would say children who are especially into art, love drawing, creating colour etc.
The sets that are currently available in this range is the 12 set, 24 set, 36 set and the largest set of 72, which is the set I have been using for this review. They have certainly got the set sizes perfect, in fact I would love to see these set sizes introduced to the Bruynzeel Design range.
I have contacted Bruynzeel yet not received a reply to find out if the Bruynzeel Expression are sold in Open Stock. I haven’t been able to locate the pencils in open stock form, at least not from traditional art stores, Amazon, Ebay or directly from the companies website.
Bruynzeel Expression Coloured Pencil Performance
I have briefly mentioned that the core of the Bruynzeel Expression is quite soft but not Prismacolor soft and when laying down multiple layers, on closer inspection you could be forgiven for assuming a slightly heavier oil content in the ingredients of the core.
As always I complete a swatch to get a good look at light and heavy applications of the pencils, to show me what type of pigment I have to work with on whatever piece I chose to draw and I try to do this using the same paper I am going to be doing the art work on. In this case I used the Clairefontaine Paint On paper which I guess is more Mixed Media paper.
I then started to see how the pigments were going to blend and what type of colors I was going to get. When you blend a blue and yellow together, you are not always going to get a nice usable green, it will depend on the pencil core and pigment strength. However as you can see on the blending tests completed with the Bruynzeel Expression I was able to achieve bright and noticeable colors from blending blue and yellow to get green, red and yellow to get orange and blue and red to get a gorgeous purple.
I tested the pigments on some Winsor and Newton Black paper, I used the usual four colors, red, yellow, blue and green, but I also added the Gold and Silver pencils as well as the white. This test allows me to see the translucency or opaqueness of the pigments as well as seeing the white in action.
Ordinarily I am not a fan of metallic pencils, with the exception of specifically metallic sets produced. So many 36 and above sets now have a Gold and Silver pencil in them and they can really be hit and miss, both the Gold and Silver pencils in this 72 set of Bruynzeel Expression are actually really impressive, surprisingly metallic. I am not sure why but the cores of so many metallic pencils can be very dry and scratchy when laying pigment down, this was not the case here.
I was able to achieve approximately five or six layers before I started to feel a little bit of resistance from the build up off pigment, at this stage when OMS (Odourless Mineral Spirits) is applied the layering was able to continue.
I completed my own botanical piece with the Bruynzeel Expression Colored Pencils and was really happy with the process and final outcome of the work. Sharpening the pencils was easy although as I mentioned earlier, the barrel is clearly wood but it has a plastic feel to it, almost like a synthetic wood which I know is crazy. Nevertheless, sharpening was a dream and none of the pencils I used broke, chipped or had damaged cores in anyway.
The one thing that I would criticise mainly the pigment selection and not so much the actual pencil is the reds in the 72 set. There is a fantastic selection of greens, pinks, blues, yellows browns and greys, however I would have loved to had one or two darker reds. There are about six or seven reds in the selection and they are quite similar, I personally would have loved a much darker red, especially given the art work I created, some of the berries in the botanical piece needed rich dark reds and I had to get a little bit creative.
Bruynzeel Expression Lightfast Information.
The Bruynzeel Expression series is aimed at students, children, adult colourists, colored pencil enthusiast, sketch book artists and so lightfast rating is not important for these areas of art.
Once lightfast ratings are applied to the pencils the price is hiked up considerably and the target market is changed accordingly from all of the above to colored pencil fine art artists. For those of you new to The Art Gear Guide and colored pencils, lightfast information is only important if you are looking to sell your art or you are being commissioned.
That being said there is no lightfast ratings whatsoever for the Bruynzeel Expression colored pencils. I think to be honest with you, if they were tested or given the right process to provide lightfast ratings, I think the Expression would be a nice pencil to use.
Bruynzeel Expression Pricing
Here in the UK, the Bruynzeel Expression are incredibly well priced given everything I have just mentioned about the pencils. For the 12 set of Bruynzeel Expression you will pay approximately £8.99, for the 24 set approximately £12.99, for the 36 set approximately £17.04 and for the largest 72 set you will pay £44.99
The Bruynzeel Expression can be a little more difficult to find in the US however I have listed the prices for the sets that I was able to locate. For the 36 Set you will pay approximately $28.95 and finally for the 72 set you will pay $49.99 approximately. Unfortunately I was unable to locate the 12 and 24 sets on Amazon but as always I will update the site as and when they become available.
With Bruynzeel being a Dutch brand they are ordinarily easier to locate in Europe. For the 12 set of Bruynzeel Expression you can expect to pay €9.79 , for the 24 set you can pay approximately €13.24 , for the 36 you will pay approximately €28 and for the 72 set you will pay approximately €49.67
Bruynzeel Expression Coloured Pencil Conclusion
The only issue I really had with the Bruynzeel Expression was more to do with the pigment selection and less to do with the actual pencil. I also mentioned about the material the barrel is made from and how it feels in the hand and when sharpening, this was not a fault or criticism more an observation.
I really enjoyed using the Bruynzeel Expression and was incredibly happy with the art work I created with them. You can check out the speed drawing of the art work by following the link or you can check out the page here on The Art Gear Guide were you can select and inspect the still images I took of the art work at various stages throughout the process.
You can also follow the link to my YouTube Review of the Bruynzeel Expression and between the four different reviews, I hope you are able to get a better understanding of this budget, student grade yet highly enjoyable pencil to use. If you like the YouTube review and have found it helpful, liking and subscribing to the channel always helps the channel out. Thank you all so very much for your amazing support and comments. Don’t forget you can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, simply select one of the social media icons below.
