Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Review
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Review
Back when I first started my journey reviewing art supplies, when my channel and website were both called Coloured Pencil Reviews, I completed a review of the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Colored Pencils. As my YouTube channel started to improve with regards to visual and audio quality as well as my understanding and knowledge of art supplies improve, I knew there would be a few reviews I would like to revisit.
To date I have refreshed a few older reviews, but the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Colored Pencils was one review I really wanted to revisit. Not because any information in my initial review has changed, because it hasn’t, but I am definitely able to add information I didn’t know or understand first time round and with many of my first reviews, I didn’t supply art work completed with the product, which is actually quite a vital part of my reviews now.
In essence, this review of the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Pencils will provide much higher quality audio and video, I have also supplied art work completed with the Lyra Polycolor pencils and I have added information I may have missed first time round. However, if you purchased these pencils on the back of my first review, this review is only going to help enhance your decision. I worry that people will think, “Oh my goodness, he is redoing a review because the information first time round was wrong.” This is absolutely not the case, I am simply adding information or enhancing the quality in the case of the video reviews.
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Sets Available
The Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Colored Pencils come in a variety of sets and they are also available in a luxury wooden box set. With regards to the normal tin sets available, you can purchase the Lyra Polycolor is a set of 12, 24, 36 and 72, with the 72 set being the largest single set available. The Lyra Rembrandt pencil can also be purchased in open stock format which is a huge bonus.
Lyra also however offer a set of 12 Grey Polycolor Colored Pencils and when you look further along the review, you will see why this is such a welcomed addition. This is quite similar to the Koh-I-Noor set up in that they provide a separate set of 12 Grey and Browns. I had always thought Lyra supplied a 12 set of Browns and whilst this might have been the case a while ago, for the life of me I am unable to locate this set. I do however feel that the Polycolor range would certainly benefit from suppling a set of 12 Brown to the range as they have done with the Greys.
In summary, there is 78 colors total in the Lyra Rembrandt range, the 72 Set plus although there is a 12 set of Greys, 6 of the Greys are already part of the 72 Set, including the Black and White, meaning only 6 of the 12 Greys are new over all, hence the total being 72 plus the 6 Greys equating to 78.
The Wooden Gift Box Set that is available is counted as a 106 set, this does not mean that there is 106 colors, the number refers to all the pieces in the set total. There is 78 Polycolor Colored Pencils in the box including the Greys, the official Lyra website says that there is 22 pencils for monochrome drawing, 1 Craft knife, 1 Sanding Block, 2 Paper Blending Stumps and 1 Kneaded Eraser. All of this totals 106 separate items.
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Characteristics
The first time I purchased a set of the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor was the 36 Set which I used for my first review, I still have almost that full set, after purchasing open stock pencils here and there. However, I loved using them so much I thought for this refresh review I would purchase the 72 set and I am so glad I did.
The tin you purchase, regardless of size, has a cardboard sleeve covering a plain tin, the art work on the sleeve is absolutely gorgeous and actually in my opinion perfectly represents the pencils. Unfortunately I am not sure who produced the art work, I have looked but have not been successful in locating the artist. Nevertheless it is incredibly attractive and portrays in my opinion quality.
On the back of the sleeve there is a color chart showing all the colors in the set that you have purchased. As well as the color chart, there is an explanation of the lightfast ratings they use along with the appropriate lightfast grade beside each pigment in the tin. This is incredibly helpful, meaning that you don’t have to go looking for this information online if it is important to you, it is right there in your hand. Obviously if you want to know the lightfast ratings for the entire range you can find this on the company website, however I have also supplied it in this review.
The Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencil is an incredibly deceptive pencil, the pencil feels very slim, which it is, however, this pencil is all core and less the wood barrel. the barrel is a gorgeously exposed round wood grain aesthetic, it is a well balanced body and the barrel is a slimline 7.4mm. With a barrel this slim, you would expect a core of approximately 3.3mm core or there about, however the Polycolor delivers a pigment packed 4mm core, which in relation to the barrel size is really quite impressive.
Along one side of the barrel is displayed the Lyra logo in black print, this is closely followed by “Rembrandt Polycolor” indicating the pencil brand. This is followed by the companies origins “Germany” and the barrel is finally capped of with an inch long pigment identifier, making pigment selection visually easy against the beauty of the plain wood grain barrel.
On the opposite side of the barrel running from the core to the cap is a bar code, followed by the pigment name which is printed in two languages, German and English. Finally there is a seven digit number representing the individual pigment of that particular pencil which is primarily used for open stock purposes.
The Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor sharpens exceptionally well and holds a point remarkably well, the only issue I think some people may have is sharpening the pencil with a hand held sharpener. Given the slim nature of the barrel, I found it a little bit tricky at times sharpening using a small hand held sharpener, when this happened I immediately thought of those who may have arthritis in the hand or wrist. If this does apply to you, I am not suggesting you deprive yourself of such a beautiful pencil just on this basis, however, what I would say is try to invest in a hand crank sharpener which eradicates this problem completely.
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Pricing
I am often asked to recommend a good quality, artist quality pencil but with a reasonable price range and the Polycolor is one of the first two pencils I always suggest. You have to shop about, but for the most part, especially on Amazon, the pricing for the Polycolor is excellent value for money in my opinion, which I will round up in my conclusion as to why I think this.
Here in the UK, to purchase the 12 set of assorted colors in the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor range you can expect to pay approximately £10.99 , for the set of 12 Grey Polycolor you will pay £14.95, for the 24 set of Polycolor you can expect to pay £24.50 , for the 36 set you will pay approximately £25.99 , for the 72 set you will pay £58.19 and for the more luxurious 106 wooden box set you can expect to pay £195
For those colored pencil artists in the US you can expect to pay the following. For the 12 set of assorted colors $16.09 , for the set of 12 Grey Lyra Polycolor you will pay approximately $15.07, for the 24 set of Lyra Polycolor you will pay $32.64 , for the 36 set you can expect to pay $35.00 , for the 72 set you will pay approximately $79.99 and for the largest 106 Wooden Box Set you will pay $182.42
For those of you in Europe you can expect to pay the following for these gorgeous pencils. For the 12 set of Lyra Polycolor Assorted colors you can expect to pay €11.99, for the 12 set of Grey Lyra Polycolor you can expect to pay €17.99, for the 24 set of Lyra you will pay €28.02, for the 36 set it will be approximately €28.35, for the 72 set you will pay €63.74 and for the 106 wooden box set of Lyra Polycolor you can expect to pay €165.88
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Performance
The general conensious for the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencils are that they are oil based, now, if you have followed The Art Gear Guide for long enough and you have read a few of my reviews, you will know I don’t subscribe to this pigeon holing of pencils.
When I first started out with reviewing colored pencils and didn’t really know any better, I used to contact the companies, ask them about the pencils and would report that they were oil or wax based. With every single review I would get half of the comments section saying they weren’t what I reported and the opposite, so if I said a pencil was wax, I would get, no they are not they are oil.
I tried to do a bit of investigating regarding this because at the time I was getting the information directly from the companies, or people on the other end of the phone for the companies, but more often than not, these people didn’t actually have anything to do with the making of the pencils. At this point I took the bull by the horns and tried to get a dialog going with some of the chemists in the larger colored pencil companies. It took a long time for this to happen but I eventually spoke to three different chemists from three different companies and they all told me the same thing.
Whilst there is wax, various different types of wax and oil in pencil cores, no pencil is made of just wax or just oil. For the most part the ingredients in these pencils are top secret, but they could tell me that there was no such thing as a wax pencil or oil pencil. So, after all this complicated and confusing research I decided to simply explain how the core feels to me and leave the oil or wax debate to others.
First Layer
With the Lyra Polycolor, whilst the core holds a point exceptionally well, when layering, the core feels like liquid silk gliding across the paper. In the art work I completed, I was able to just keep layering and layering and whilst this was also due to the paper, I did conduct other tests on different paper and achieved the same results.
I found the darker pigments to be deep and rich and the lighter pigments to still have that level of body in them but still displaying a delicate pigment. I completed a few different tests the first of which I have presented below. In this test I apply five light layers and show you the gentle result of each layer. For the final test I apply one single heavy application just to demonstrate the thick pigment and core strength.
In the next test I completed some blending samples, blending yellow and blue to present green, yellow and red to present orange and then red and blue to achieve purple. All of these tests were conducted on Clairefontaine Paint On Mixed Media paper and the results were very pleasing.
In the final test I simply took five different blue tones and the black to achieve a sphere, however, what this test displays is the seamless blending executed between each tone and also using the Lyra Splender Blender to fuse the colors.
In the Color chart you can see the vibrancy of the pigments right the way throughout the 72 colors, this chart was also completed on the Clairefontaine Paint On Mixed Media Paper. The artwork I completed of the horses eye was completed on Fabriano Artistico Extra White 140lb Hot Pressed Paper, which in itself is a phenomenal paper with a 100% cotton content.
As always I have completed applying a few pigments from the set on Winsor and Newton black paper, what this test indicates is the level of transluceny or opaqueness each pigment displays. For any of you unsure of what this means, if a pigment is opaque, when applied over a dark paper you will not be able to see the dark paper background show through. However if the pigment is translucent you will be able to see the dark paper through the layer of pigment applied.
There is no right or wrong, good or bad to this test, different types of art might warrant opaque or translucent pigments, it is all completely subjective, nevertheless it is a test I like to include as there are many colored pencil artist who like to use dark papers. From this test you can see that the Blue is really opaque and the White is quite opaque also. With the red, yellow and both greens, you can see the difference between them and the blue and thus the level of translucency in the other pigments.
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Lightfast Information
It is really quite rare to find colored pencils of this high quality, with such a low to moderate price tag and still have lightfast testing accompanying them, however, this is exactly the case for the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor. With the Lyra Rembrandt.
The lightfast ratings for the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor are out of three stars, 1 Star equates to a satisfying Lightfast rating, 2 Star rating equates to Good Lightfastness and 3 Stars equates to Extremely Good Lightfastness.
Given the scale, out of the 72 colors available in the largest set 47 colors are rated three stars, 21 colors are rated two stars and 4 colors are rated one star which I think is an excellent ratio, considering all the factors I have already highlighted.
With the set of 12 Grey Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor, which is sold separately, all 12 colors are rated 3 Stars. In that set of 12 Grey I must stress that the set includes black and white pencils so in total you get 10 grey pigments of which 4 are in the 72 set, so if you have the 72 and purchase this set of 12 Grey, you will gain 6 new Grey pigments.
Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Conclusion
In case i have not explained myself correctly, I absolutely love the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencils. I reviewed a set of pencils, very inexpensive, also manufactured by Lyra called “Giotto” and these pencils are also gorgeous to use. Lyra as with Koh-I-Noor, produce wonderful pencils, with impressive lightfast ratings and sell them at incredibly affordable prices considering the product you receive.
The Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencil is a well balanced pencil, with a smooth and consistent lay down, incredible layering abilities and a nice palette selection. If I was allow to make one change or addition, I think I would either add a set of 12 Brown pencils to the party or given my greedy nature for gorgeous art products, I would extend the range to a 120 set, I think a 120 set of the Lyra Polycolor would be a game changer for so many colored pencil artists and stiff completion for the other big colored pencil companies.
As always I have completed a full YouTube video review of the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor Colored Pencils as well as a speed drawing video showing the artwork I completed using the pencils. I have also added a page to The Art Gear Guide displaying images of the artwork at various stages of completion so that the images can be enlarged and inspected at your leisure.
Incidentally the artwork I completed of the Horses Eye will also be added to my Patreon account in the form of a real time tutorial, this is a really simple piece and if you are interested in following along, you don’t actually need to use the same pencils, you can use whatever pencils you prefer to use.
