Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Pencil Sets

Caran D’Ache have recently released new coloured pencils – Museum Aquarelle. They come in 76 colours though only the full range is available in singles. Currently, the collections available are 12 Basics, 20 Marine and 20 Landscape.

The collection of 12 came in a beautiful square box with foam top and bottom and grooved to hold the pencils. The pencils themselves are gorgeous.

They are chunky and weighty. They have a black matt livery with a generous colour-dipped tip. In the collection of 12 you get 2 options for every colour group – I was disappointed not to get a white though, I may buy that separately. On the hexagonal barrell, Caran D’Ache helpfully have added the lightfast rating – this collection is 3 to 5 stars – the only ‘fugitive’ pencil being the cobalt blue.

I love the chunky cores in these too. The cores are soft, dense and chunky – chunky enough for you to get stuck in and carried away with your work without fear of damage lending to a more expressive feel to your work rather than detailed.

When you add water to them, they dissolve instantly and the wash is thick and creamy thinning out to a nice wash. The ‘fugitive’ blue is a little wishy-washy but the rest are good. The dry pigment is thick and dense, solid laydown. I use rough watercolour card for my swatches and these pencils coped admirably though filling the tooth with the chunky cores would take a lot more work.

The best water soluble pencil I've ever used. It is rather pricy, but it seems to me that the colour leads contain more pigment than other makes. Very versatile, fine in both dry and wet uses. Hope the individual pencils will be in stock soon.

These coloured pencils are fabulous, rich in pigment when used dry and wash out beautifully to give an authentic watercolour effect.