DerwentArtists Black & White Colouring Pencils With Sharpener, Drawing & Colouring, Set Of 6, Ideal For Layering & Blending, Professional Quality, 2302342

These pencils are a lovely extra selection to add to my Derwent Drawing pencil set. They have a creamy laydown and lovely for blending, this is packaged in a lovely wee metal tin and 4 are subtle coloured shades, 2 blacks, a green and blue tinted pencil, and 2 white which are very lightly tinted, with blue and pink, the other 2 pencils are just original black and white. These are lightfast too, which for artists, is an important consideration when purchasing pencils. I have given a star less than full marks, not for the pencils which are great, they certainly would score 5 stars, but the sharpener provided, though it can be used for normal sized graphite sketching pencils, this doesn't fit these pencils.

The pencils are typical of Derwent tinted products. The sharpener is for 7 mm pencils. These are 8 mm pencils, so do not fit the sharpener. Derwent use this tin for other pencils, and always supply the same sharpener. Here there is a mismatch.

Like the fact that these are tinted and enable you to achieve a subtle shade of colour.

I've recently become keen on using coloured pencils as a medium and have treated myself to several sets. I was keen to try this little set out as they aren't included in the other ranges, are lightfast and thought the tinted blacks and whites might be useful.On opening them I wasn't very impressed by the build quality or presentation. The painted ends were lumpy, chipped and grubby and the ends looked chewed up by being sharpened very roughly. This seemed careless and odd for a set that claimed to be "of finest artists quality" on the pack.They did sharpen well to a good point with the included sharpener but I was underwhelmed by their performance. The whites are very hard leaded so it is almost impossible to shade with them without indenting the paper but are very transparent which makes them unsuitable for final details. The blacks are slightly softer but of equally low pigment. The Raven is more like a dark grey, the Midnight is lighter than other brands Indigo and the Forest is far more green than black. Not "highly pigmented pure colour" as it says on the box. (Even my inexpensive Lyra set of blacks, greys and white are far more highly pigmented than these.)This left me in a bit of a quandary as I find they are too hard to layer easily but far too transparent for final details as far as I am concerned. Plus the tinted blacks go noticeably bright green or blue if you layer white over them. The only upside I can dredge up for this set is they came in a nice sturdy tin with a flimsy but effective plastic sharpener.I had hoped that Derwent had decided to return to the high standards that they had when they were owned by Rexel Cumberland but this sadly does not seem to be the case. ( This isn't nostalgia, I own some vintage sets I bought from their factory shop and have been horrified by the smaller size and lower quality of the current open stock I've recently bought to replace favourite shades. )Oh well, I will stick with European brands who manage to produce nicely presented, good quality pencils for a better price rather than being disappointed by Derwent and recommend others do the same.

The pencils are excellent. The only minus is the sharpener which is too small for the pencils this size.

beautiful set of pencils. wonderful flow to them for drawing and shading. will buy more when need to.

Nicely presented. The sharpener is only school standard. Very good colours, will be in frequent use.

Excellent quality product, good light/whites colour range.