Cretacolor Black And White Box Review
Cretacolor Black And White Box Review
I have reviewed a few Cretacolor products over the years and Cretacolor is another one of those companies with a very prestigious name and history, yet with perhaps the exception of their wonderful Cretacolor Pastel Pencil range. Nevertheless, Cretacolor products are unfortunately not popular among artist content creators and for the life of me I am unsure as to why this appears to be the case.
However, if you have used or reviewed Jerrys Artarama’s Colored Pencils, and you loved them, then you have in fact used Cretacolor. I am not 100% sure what appears to be happening on this front, but it looks like that the Soho Urban Artist colored pencils are on “Closeout” at Jerry’s. Living in England I am not sure if “Close Out” means the range is no longer available and they are selling off the stock they currently have or if the Soho Urban Artist pencils are in the sale. Interestingly, I could only locate open stock pencils on Jerrys web site and not the sets and when checking Cretacolor, I noticed they are only selling sets up to a 36 count whereas the range used to be 72. However, I have a sneaky feeling Cretacolor will soon release a new artist quality colored pencil, shussssh. This is something I will investigate and get to the bottom of, but as this review is about the Cretacolor Black and White Box, we will get on with it.
Cretacolor Black and White Box Characteristics
I think in the last few years, Cretacolor have gone through a transitional rebranding exercise, I say this due to the many amazing sketching sets available from Cretacolor and the attractive packaging the sets come in. The Cretacolor Black and White Box is no exception. I have spoken a little bit about the packaging certain products come in and I know it has no relevance whatsoever to the products quality, however, marketing plays a huge part in attracting our attention and generally speaking, well advertised and aesthetically pleasing packaging is always going to win us over, which is not always a good thing and something to be careful of.
The outer box depicts clearly that the box contains black and white mediums given the clear typography and illustration. On the back of the outer box, there is a run-down of the materials inside the set and this is laid out in a few different languages and images of exactly what you can expect inside the set.
On removing the cardboard outer box, you are presented with this stylish and eloquent all white box, with only the Cretacolor logo in the bottom righthand corner accompanied with the title, “Brevilliers” which is part of the Cretacolor brand. This stylish white box is sturdy and made from strong cardboard, allowing the artist to use the packaging as a permanent storage solution for the products inside as it as a look and feel of eloquence.
The box is sealed with a magnetic flap on the front, the same side as the logo has been printed. When you open the box, you are immediately greeted by the gorgeous selection of black and white chalks, charcoals and oil products. On the lid of the box, internally there is a firm foam covering which ensures, once the box is closed and moved, the contents is not going to move about should the box end up on its side or upside down.
White Medium Characteristics
On the white side of the set, we can see two white chalk pencils, both pencils sport a natural wood barrel, with information printed along the barrels in clear black font. In the case of both white chalk pencils, they sport a 3.7mm core encased in a natural wood barrel of 7.4mm. Both pencils sport different variations of opaqueness and this is depicted in a numerical format, simply 1 and 2 on the respective barrels with 1 being the least opaque and 2 the most.
At the side of both white chalk pencils there is a White Chalk Oil pencil, this pencil sports an all-white barrel, similar to that of a Faber Castell Polychromos White pencil. The dimensions of this pencil are exactly the same as both white chalk pencils, in fact, all pencil format mediums in this set, both black and white, hold the same core and barrel dimensions.
Next along for the white mediums is a slim woodless, what Cretacolor refer to as, “White Pastel Artist Lead Soft”, I am not altogether sure what medium that makes this product as it is most certainly not just a pastel format which you will see later in the review. The dimension of the White Pastel Artist Lead is 5.1mm diameter.
Finally for the white mediums, we have a larger rectangle pastel stick followed by two smaller pastel sticks. The two smaller pastel sticks are very similar in appearance to the pastel sticks you would see in many artists sketch sets or Pastel block sets.
Accessories
There are not many accessories in this set, which would only be my one and only gripe about the set overall. You are provided with the obligatory plastic pastel sharpener, such sharpeners are present in so many pastel and charcoal sets, I am not sure why. I think it is generally accepted among the art companies that these chunky plastic handheld sharpeners are perfect for the brittle cores of pastel and charcoal, however I am far from convinced. Although I have yet to examine and test one that works, one is supplied in this set.
Below the sharpener in the set you are presented with an essential kneaded eraser, such an eraser is not so much important for erasing mistakes, the kneaded eraser is an essential drawing tool especially when it pertains to charcoal pieces.
The one accessory that is missing from the set that I feel is so important to be included is of course a blending stump. Blending stops are just tightly rolled paper materials, shaped like a pencil sharpened at both ends. This tool allows the artist to move and blend the powdery materials like pastel and charcoal, around the surface being used. Although many charcoal and pastel artists prefer to use a finger to move and blend the medium, many artists prefer a paper blending stump. the are many reasons for this preference one of which is that whilst using our fingers, we are transferring the natural oils from our hands to the surface, thus creating unwanted marks that are almost impossible to remove and can on occasions destroy the over-all look to a final piece.
Black Medium Characteristics
There are a lot more black mediums in the set which I though at first was a bit odd, however, the white mediums will primarily be used to include highlighted areas, whereas the black will be used to provide the bulk of the work.
First we are presented with 2 large rectangle black Nero Art Sticks, with the whites there is only one, but here we have two. One is soft and the other medium, it is important to note that, very much as is the case with graphite, when we talk about soft and hard, this generally refers to soft equalling dark and hard equating to lighter value.
Beside the Nero Large Sticks we have four smaller sticks, again, two of them are soft and the other two medium, which you will very much be able to see the difference when the swatch is presented. Next we have three Sketching Charcoal Sticks, they are the three larger cylindrical sticks. All three of the sticks are rated Soft, Medium and Hard, which present in your art different values.
Next along we have three compressed charcoal sticks, very similar to woodless pencils and the white woodless pastel in the set. Again all three present different values ranging soft, medium and hard. It’s important to note that all of the pastel sticks in the set, both black and white, only have numbers depressed into them along with the Cretacolor logo. This of course makes for identification a bit harder, especially once you start to use the set and break such sticks into the sizes you need. This is why creating a swatch from the very beginning is quite important and something to reference back to as and when needed.
Finally we have the 6 black pencils in the set. The first two are Nero pencils, there is a number 3 which is medium and a Nero 1 which is extra soft. Beside the Nero pencils we have three charcoal pencils simply labeled 1, 2 and 3, with 1 equating to soft, 2 is medium and 3 is hard.
The last pencil in the set is the Black Chalk, this pencil when using doesn’t feel like chalk, there is a very different feel to it, regardless the Black Chalk pencil is simply graded 2, but again you will see in the swatch just how brilliant this particular pencil is.
Cretacolor Black and White Box Performance
Below you can see the swatch I have created of the entire Cretacolor Black and White set, I am not going to talk about each and every pencil and pastel stick in the set regarding their individual performances, this article is already quite lengthy. But you can see from the swatch the different values each product provides.
The thin white woodless pencil that is referred to as White Pastel Artist Lead Soft is surprisingly opaque, when used on the surface, it certainly didn’t feel like a traditional pastel pencil core, there seemed to be a content of oil in it.
Ive also added each white medium on some black paper just to give you an understanding of their values on such a surface. I know there are a lot of pastel and charcoal artists that like to work in the negative values and produce some of the most amazing work.
You can also see on the original swatch I have swatched the pastel and charcoal blocks and sticks at the bottom, not in the order of the set and the pencils are displayed above. It is here that you can see the intense black the Chalk pencil provides. This pencil sports a maroon barrel as opposed to the others and their black barrels, so the pencil stands out immediately in the set and I can see why, I love it.
Artwork Problems
You can see at the very bottom of the swatch I drew a quick glass with water just to help me understand what I was going to draw with the set and how the values were going to work. I then for some reason decided to draw the glass on grey paper, which was a bad move on my part.
The grey paper I chose was far too pale for the white highlights to really pop. This is not an indictment on the paper or the Cretacolor white mediums in the set, just a bad grouping of mediums on my part. It was such a bad selection on my part that I didn’t even finish the glass.
I came into the studio with the intension of completing the glass and as I just wasn’t feeling the piece from the very beginning, I had to simply stop. Ordinarily I would never suggest stopping in the middle of a project and tell you to always trust the process. However, I am reviewing a product and I try to demonstrate the product in the best way I can and what I was providing, I knew was not the best this product could provide.
I had a feeling that I need to be so much more loose with the mediums, I needed to be free and less constrained, I kept thinking the producer of this set would not be happy with my work as it was far too uptight and constrained.
This was when I decided that as the set was called Black and White, I need to do something with plenty of light and shadow, plenty of contrasting values of black and white, only this time I used my gorgeous Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Toned Tan paper.
Ironically, this pice took me about 45 minutes to complete from start to finish, sketch included, I was aiming for loose and this was what I ended up producing. At the end of the process when I stood back and looked at it, I got a feeling that I have never once got with any of my artwork. I recognised the feeling as I have experienced it viewing other pieces, but never once with my own.
I thought to myself, I have spent 30 hours on a piece before and here I have not even spent an hour on this and it has touched me emotionally. I think after nine years of drawing, this piece taught me more in 45 minutes than I have learnt in the past nine or so years from anything I have created. I love it, I am in love with it. I showed it to my youngest daughter who immediately asked if she could have it. I showed it to my wife and she just looked at it for a while before saying a word, something Vicky has never done with any of my art, its always more of, “Yes it is lovely, now can I get on with reading” lol.
I showed my eldest daughter who asked the same as my youngest, she wants to have it, needless to say I am going to have to get some prints made for both the girls. However, family reactions aside, I loved using the materials in this Cretacolor Black and White set when creating this still life.
Cretacolor Black and White Box Pricing
At the time of writing this article I have been unable to find a single set on Amazon, I looked in other art stores, fearing that perhaps the set had been discontinued, alas this was not the case and plenty of other sites and art stores stock the set, along with the Cretacolor store of course. I will obviously continue to check amazon and as a when prices and links become available I will amend this article.
Prices range from £35 to £45 and in the US stores sell the set for $27 and the highest I’ve seen thus far has been $43. In Europe the prices range from the same price brackets. It’s also important to note that Cretacolor have two Black and White Box sets, the one I have reviewed and the second depicts a skull on the box. Internally, both sets are identical, the set with the Skull was a special edition set and Cretacolor do have this highlighted on their site, but it is a mistake anyone could make.
Cretacolor Black And White Box Set Conclusion
Once I finally understood what I wanted to do with the set and how I was going to demonstrate the set, I started to absolutely love the set. For an artist who knows what they are doing with charcoal, pastel and chalk mediums, I think you would love this set. For artists who understand the mediums and would love to give them a try, I also think this set is perfect for you.
the quality of each medium is of the Cretacolor traditionally high standard, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I am not sure why I don’t seen more reviews and articles on Cretacolor products. I know I am in the UK and most of what we see on the internet is US born, however, we still see plenty of Faber Castell and Caran d’Ache videos on YouTube and other places.
In my opinion, of all the products I have thus far reviewed from Cretacolor, I have found them to be of a high standard, I loved their 72 set of Pastel Pencils which I reviewed a while back. The Cretacolor Aquagraph was another gorgeous set and I have a few more sets to review, so watch this space.
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