Crayola Signature Blend and Shade Colored Pencils
Crayola Signature Blend and Shade Colored Pencils.
Crayola is a huge name when it comes to colored pencils, perhaps not among the fine art colored pencils amongst us, however, I think it may be fair to assume that Crayola in some way or another is responsible for planting the seeds to our passions.
Crayola have been providing wooden sticks and wax crayons of pigment to children’s chubby little hands for over 100 years. Since 1909, the Crayola name; we all instantly recognise globally; has been providing colourful joyous memories to children all around the world
Although Crayola is a brand synonyms with art supplies for children, the last ten years, give or take, has seen an explosive increase in colored pencil use, be it in the form of recreational colouring book work aiding the terrible human plight of mental health, professional adult colouring book artists, phenomenal fine art colored pencil artist and the list goes on. As a result, Crayola has decided to create an additional brand to their already familiar name to cater for adults dabbling in any of the above activities.
That additional brand is Crayola’s Signature brand, launched in 2017, which in fact comprises of a few different mediums but for the purpose of this review we will be taking a look at the Crayola Signature Blend & Shade Colored Pencils.
Crayola Signature Sets Available
Unlike the children’s Crayola Colored Pencils which come in huge sets, as much as 120 sets and sometimes larger given certain circumstances, the Crayola Signature brand is much more compact. As things currently stand and I phrase my statement in this way because we don’t know as of yet whether or not Crayola will be expanding the Signature range, only provide two sets in the Signature suite.
Currently the Crayola Signature Blend and Shade Colored Pencils only come in a set of 24 and 50, the 50 set is a pretty unusual set size in the work of colored pencils, with other companies opting for 48 or 60 sizes .
Crayola Signature Characteristics
I have purchased the 50 set to review for you, if I can at all afford to do so or if companies ask me to review their products I much prefer to review their largest set. Not because I am greedy and want as many art supplies as I can get but simply so that I can discuss the entire palette and provide the best art work demonstration I can with the full set.
The art work on the tins is incredibly pretty, both the 24 and 50 sets sport similar art work, but the tins themselves remind me of tins I would have found around my GrandMothers house filled with useless items but seemed like treasure to the mind of a child. The Crayola Signature tins are black with the beautiful artwork on the lid which is a stark contrast to the bright Yellow boxes of the children’s art supplies, designed to capture the eye of a child. Straight away it is clear that from the initial appearance, Crayola are leaving the child like fun at the door as far as the Crayola Signature range is concerned.
There is a card sleeve wrapped around the tin and slides off very easily, on the back of which is detailed information regarding the pencils and of course a color chart, visually depicting what you can expect to find within the tin.
On opening the 50 set you are presented with a plastic tray holding 25 pencils, very similar to other colored pencil sets aimed at students or artists, complete with pinch slots at the sides for ease of removal. Under the first tray is another tray again holding 25 pencils. Whilst a very minor detail, more often than not, colored pencils will start with the white, cream, light yellows etc, however the Crayola Signature first tray starts with some reds, yellows, greens and blues. The second tray presents a more hap hazard approach with blues, peaches, purples, a few browns and then the black and white pencil.
The Crayola Signature pencil sports a round barrel, lacquered with a matt black finish. The Crayola Signature barrel is an ample 7.5mm sporting a no nonsense 3.8mm core. At first glance I found the cores to offer a somewhat muted appearance and started me thinking that the pencils were not going to be very pigmented.
Along the barrel is printed the Crayola name and logo, another slightly nit picking comment approaching. As Crayola are aiming their Signature range toward a more mature client, I perhaps would have liked to see the name “Crayola” printed in a more sophisticated font as opposed to the traditional Crayola font.
Further along the barrel, each pencil has the pigment name printed in three different languages, English, Spanish and French which I felt was a nice touch given too many pencils fail to add the pigment name in any language and for artists visually impaired or colored blind, pigment names are quite important.
On the very end of the barrel is an inch long pigment identifier making quick and easy visual selection of the color required. Over all the pencil does look like a student or professional based product as opposed to their child counterparts.
Crayola Signature Pricing
As I mentioned there are only two sets as far as the Signature Colored Pencils are concerned, the 24 and 50 set. Here in the UK if you wanted to purchase the 24 set of Crayola Signature it would cost you approximately £19.99 and for the largest 50 set you can expect to pay approximately £34.00
For artists in the US you can expect to pay the following for the Crayola Signature Colored Pencils. For the 24 Set you will pay $23.14 and for the largest 50 set you will pay approximately $43.58
For Colored Pencil artists in Europe, you can expect to pay the following for the Crayola Signature range. for the 24 set you will pay approximately €29.99 and for the largest 50 set you will pay approximately €37.68
Crayola Signature Performance
It is important to note right from the outset, although the Crayola Signature are not aimed toward children as the Crayola name would otherwise suggest and conjure in your mind, they are not either highly lightfast artist quality, that being said I found the Crayola Signature really quite difficult to pin down.
As always I completed a demonstration piece of art and on this occasion I created a very simple Apple. At this stage I was very aware of the fact that I had not uploaded a review in about two weeks and I wanted to get one uploaded soon, so I selected a simple subject and one I thought would display the pigments adequately for you.
I wouldn’t say that I rushed the drawing but I have to be honest and say that I didn’t take my time either, I did however use a high quality paper in Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor paper. Ordinarily I would advise against using the lower end of student grade pencils on really expensive paper, but the Arches was all I had which presented a decent amount of tooth.
I also completed some blending and layering tests which you can see the results of in the images. As always I conducted a layering test whereby I apply a maximum of five layers and then one heavy application. This test shows the strength of pigment and change throughout the layering process. I apply five layers because it is generally considered that five layers is a good time to apply Odourless Mineral Spirits if you are so inclined to do so.
The paper I used for this test and the blending test was my Canson Extra Heavy Weight Drawing Paper which also held a nice texture but was of a much lower quality that the Arches. I used this paper to show you the Crayola signature on both high and medium quality paper types. As you can see with the layering test, the pigment strength is really quite surprising, given my conclusion after visually inspecting the pencil cores, I wasn’t expecting strong pigments.
My next test was the blending test were I blend and mix two pigments together to create a third. this is not always an easy process to accomplish with colored pencils and so I find it a good indication to the core qualities. Again, in this test I was really pleasantly surprised with the outcome of the Blue and Yellow mix, as well as the Yellow and Red and Blue and Red. There is no doubt about it that the tooth of the paper helped this process, but the pigment strength was satisfying all things considered.
As you can see from the swatch, which was completed on Clairefontaine Pain On Mixed Media paper, that the pigments for the most part were strong. I actually felt that there was a nice balance of pigments throughout the 50 set with very little, if any duplicate tones, which can often be the case.
I always make sure that I display the products I am reviewing, in particular colored pencils, on black paper. I know there are a lot of colored pencil artists out there who create some amazing work on dark paper. I think of all the tests I completed this one was the most surprising, all five colors, including the white pencil were incredibly opaque, with very little to no black paper showing through the pigment.
If you have been following my reviews for a while now you will know I stay away from pigeonholing pencils in wax or oil, if you are new to my reviews I will upload a video explaining this in more detail at a later date. However the core of the Crayola Signature is quite a hard core and holds a point nicely, however, when laying down pigment, the core provides what appears a medium to soft core. Given how will the Signature holds a point, one could be forgiven for thinking that the core may be scratchy given its slightly harder value, but this was not the case in my experience.
On a few of the pencils I did find sharpening incredibly difficult with a hand held sharpener, the wood snagged and split. I am afraid this is perhaps down to poor quality wood being used for the barrels or perhaps a simple case of a few bad batches. Nevertheless using a hand crank sharpener helped to remedy this problem.
Returning to the actual art demonstration using the Crayola Signature, when looking at the image, it looks pretty poor with regards to blending which I find odd as the pencils didn’t display any issues when using them on this front. The reds in the set whilst bright and vivid, when drawing the apple, I would ordinarily turn to a reddish brown to help me achieve the darker red values. However I didn’t have this option and so I used black, which I am sure is the reason for the issue expressed above. I felt using the black and then applying red on top would blend well but this was not the case and so I am not sure if this was due to the paper or more probably due to me rushing the art. So please take this into consideration as you view the review.
Crayola Signature Vs Crayola
I wanted to just make sure that there was a difference between the Crayola Signature and Crayola Kids colored pencils and so I completed a quick test which you can watch in real time on my YouTube video review.
I tested the same four colors from both sets on White paper and as you can see from the image, there was very little to no difference with regards to the strength of pigment. The Kids Crayola pencils did feel different in my hand when laying them on the paper, they felt a little bit dry and scratchy as opposed to the softer creamier texture of the Crayola Signature.
However I tested the same four colors on Black paper and the difference was very clear to see so at this point you can clearly see that the ingredients of both cores are very different. With the Crayola Signature the pigments were very thick and opaque whereas the Kids Crayola Colored Pencils were very translucent and lots of the black paper was showing through the pigment.
Crayola signature Lightfast Information
As I alluded to earlier in the review, the Crayola Signature or more of a student grade pencil and so there is no lightfast information to accompany the pencils. This is absolutely fine as Lightfast pencils are indeed important but so are non lightfast pencils equally important. They both hold a place in our hearts as colored pencil artist, adult colouring book artists or colored pencil enthusiasts.
Crayola Signature Blend And Shade Colored Pencils Conclusion
I have to be honest when I talk to you guys, when I purchased this 50 set of Crayola Signature, I was half way through my testing and I had to buy a set of Crayola Colored Pencils so that I had something to relate to and compare with. It has been so long since I used Crayola anything, I wanted to have them in my hand as I was writing my notes and concluding my research.
Whilst the Crayola Signature are not going to set the world of Colored Pencil art on fire, they are indeed significantly better than the Crayola aimed toward children, which you would of course expect. I personally thought that the signature pencils were going to be a clever marketing ploy, the same Crayola core just with a different barrel, rather cynical I admit, but I am delighted to report my cynicism was completely unfounded and ludicrous.
I did enjoy using the Crayola Signature on all the papers I used, however, for whatever reason, I don’t feel they are best represented on the more expensive paper, the Arches Watercolor Hot Pressed. If you have any questions about this review of the Crayola Signature Colored Pencils, please don’t hesitate to ask. Know some people prefer to ask question in private and that is absolutely fine I will always do my best to reply to everyone if you ask a question via email. If you have used the Signature pencils yourself please share your experience with us here on The Art Gear Guide.
If you would like to watch my YouTube review of the Crayola Signature Colored Pencils follow the link or if you would simply like to watch the art work come to life in a speed drawing follow the link. I have also added a page to The Art Gear Guide whereby I have added some still images of the art work at various stages of completion, here you can click on an image and enlarge it to inspect the pigments or pencil strokes at your own leisure. As always thank you so very much for your wonderful support, comments and ideas for future reviews
