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FROM BORGESONSTUDIO.COM
An independent and unsponsored product review. |
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SANFORD'S PRISMACOLOR PREMIER LIGHTFAST COLORED PENCILS |
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I fished a new Fall art supplies mail order catalog out of my mailbox and found it on the back cover. There it was: the long awaited, and longer hoped for Prismacolor Premier Lightfast colored pencils ad. These are the new pencils that conform to the new ASTM D6901standard of lightfastness.
Prismacolors are my pencils of choice--well, about 80% of my pencils are Prismacolor, the other 20% is Lyra (for their great greens). Some of the regular line of Prismacolors are lightfast, but not all of them. I wasted no time in ordering two 24-pencil sets (they are also available in open stock) and wondered if they were going to be like the very disappointing Derwent Signature line of lightfast pencils or more like the regular Prismacolors I'm used to. When they arrived I went to work trying out all of the colors--both layered and unlayered. Fortunately the whimpy colors in the ad and accompanying literature are not true to the colors of the actual pencils. The pencil colors are much more full-bodied and rich (see below). After a week of studying and playing with them I've learned this: They are smooth to apply--like the regular Prismacolor colored pencils most of us have always liked. The original individual pencils were made by using different "recipes" of ingredients. These new ones seem as if they too have different recipes for there is a slight variation in feel or smoothness between such colors as Pthalo Yellow Green and Prussian Blue (the blue feeling a tad drier). This was also true in the older line's similar Spring Green and Indigo Blue. To me this just made the new ones feel familiar and comfortable. They layer beautifully like the older pencils. They also can be lifted with tape, frisket film or other tacky material if not applied too heavily or left to "cure" before lifting. They sharpen like the older Prismacolor pencils too. Which means...not perfectly. I sharpened 48 of the lightfast pencils but two could not be sharpened to a point without breaking. I used an electric sharpener to start the pencils, and tried to finish with a metal hand-held sharpener with a fresh blade. When the two proved to be breakers I tried the electric again to see if I could move beyond the break. But nothing helped and the pencils just wouldn't take a point at all. Is this a terminal problem? No, not for me. Because I really like Prismacolors I will put up with 2 breakers out of 48. But I do wish the manufacturer would fix this old and unwelcome attribute of their pencil line. A smaller complaint, but nevertheless a nuisance, is that the nomenclature of each pencil is roughly in the center of the pencil. This means that when pencils become smaller with use, we will be guessing which pencil is which color as we sharpen off its I.D. The older Prismacolor pencils had name and number at one end for visibility. This seems like something that could be fixed without tearing the plant apart. |
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| (Above) Sanford's newly released "Prismacolor Premier Lightfast " colored pencils . This set of 24 comes in a metal box with cover artwork in colored pencil by Sal Garcia. Look for this motif on sets to know you have the lightfast pencils.
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| In general however, these new lightfast colors are definitely up to Prismacolor's high standards. Pencil manufacturers strive to offer colors that represent all the colors on a color wheel. But some true spectrum hues are just not lightfast. Violet appears to be one of these. I had hoped that technology would come up with something that reads as true violet, but it did not happen in this group. Close but no cigar. Apparently for violet to be lightfast it is going to be a low intensity version and that's what we have here. The ninth color swatch above (from the left) is LF 132 Dioxazine Purple Hue. This is indeed violet, but very dark and of low intensity--not at all like Prismacolor's traditional 932 Violet (a wonderful color but a fader). Diox Purple will become a useful addition however. (Try it over a densely applied white layer to bump up the violet's intensity.)
A truly great addition is their new gorgeous LF 133 Cobalt Blue Hue. This pencil color will probably become a star player. It is saturated and complex and so much better than Prismacolor's traditional 933 Violet Blue. So here's a brief rundown of what we will find around the color wheel. My colors were applied to a paper surface with a slight medium grain (2-ply white Rising Museum Board). Color perception is subjective and varies person to person so I need to remind you that this is my opinion only: Y-G - LF 115 Lemon Yellow retains the typical Prismacolor qualities and looks very much like an older Prismacolor 915 Lemon Yellow . This new one could be considered a cool yellow rather than a yellow-green. Y - LF 116 Canary Yellow is also excellent and very much like Prismacolor's current 916 Canary. Y-O - LF 203 Gamboge is like a dirtier (low intensity) 942 Yellow Ochre. It will be useful, but you will not want to throw out your 1003 Spanish Orange for a genuinely vivid yellow-orange. O - Here's one of those hard-to-make lightfast pencil colors. The new LF 118 Orange is of low intensity (or dirtier) than the current 918 Orange. But the current 918 Orange is a fader. So we've gained a useable orange...but we'll have to accept the fact that it is not a ringing vivid orange. O-R - None offered. R - The new LF 124 Cadminum Red Hue is a wonderful surprise, and to think it is lightfast! A beautiful spectrum red. R-V - LF 195 Thio Violet in the samples above looks browner than the real pencil color. It's really more like Lyra's or Faber-Castell's Wine Red. It's an improvement over Prismacolor's traditional 931 Dark Purple which fades. It's going to be an invaluable pencil. V - LF 132 Diox Purple Hue is not as vivid as its namesake in the traditional line (932 Violet) but it is lightfast! B-V, B, and B-G- The Blues gets a little tricky. LF 108 Indanthrone Blue is a very dark, red-influenced blue. It's truly a rich and complex blue. The gorgeous LF 133 Cobalt Blue is supposed to be the real blue, I think, but it too is red-influenced. Why mention this? Only because the next two blues--LF 101 Prussian Blue and 103 Cerulean Blue--are green-influenced blues. Depending on how you perceive true blue, there may not be a true blue in this new line up. It's either reddish blue or greenish blue to me. By the way, the LF 101 Prussian Blue is like the 901Indigo Blue you are used to. But the LF 103 Cerulean Blue is not the 903 True Blue you are used to. G - LF 109 Prussian Green is not to be confused with Prismacolor's traditional 908 Dark Green or 909 Grass Green. This new Prussian Green is a warm green similar to but not quite as warm as the traditional 911 Olive Green. LF 110 Titanate Green Hue is similar to the old 910 True Green, but LF 112 is not at all like It's namesake, 912 Apple Green (a nice yellow-green but a fader). The new version is lightfast and serviceable. There are some new and useful earth colors and also a Beige and Light Peach that will be especially useful in portraiture. Speaking of portrait colors, you might wonder where the pinks are? They're just not lightfast (yet) so they're not offered in this new collection. I've always been a little embarrassed by the decorator names of the Prismacolor line. Names like Hot Pink, Limepeel, and Sunburst Yellow were not like the venerable pigment names I learned while an oil painter. Even though Dioxazine Purple and Indanthrone Blue are a mouthful, I'm glad to be working with them. I'm enormously pleased to have all these new lightfast colors, and that they behave like the Prismacolors I've always used and liked. As I rearrange my own palette now I'll start with these and add other pencil colors from the traditional Prismacolor line that I know to be lightfast. In a brief email message from Sanford Corp. they wrote that they have plans to add more colors to this lightfast edition as time goes on. They are currently testing an additional 24 that they hope to bring out in the second quarter of next year. Stay tuned. --Bet Borgeson, posted January 2006 |
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