8/24/2016

Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour pencils - review




Today I'd like to present you another product which I use a lot - watersoluble pencils from Faber Castell.





The company named these pencils after German Renaissance Master - Albrecht Dürer. He was a painter, printmaker and theorist. Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties, due to his high-quality woodcut prints. His vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, watercolours and books. He is the author of such watercolours as: 'Young Hare' (1502), 'The Large Piece of Turf' (1503), 'Wing of a Blue Roller' (1512), 'Muzzle of a Bull' (1523).



These watersoluble product is available as assorted colours sets of: 12, 24, 36, 60, 120 in a tin box and 72, 120 shades in a wooden case.

You can buy them individually.

I have a set of 12 and 12 pieces which were bought separately. So all my colorful illustrations were done only with 24 colors.



This series is dedicated to those who like to sketch during traveling. All you need is a small set of watercolour pencils, a sketchbook, a waterbrush and you can create an artwork! :)






Albrecht Dürer pencils are packed in a dark green tin box. The image on it is different than on Polychromos tin - the colours are cool (mostly blue shades), the picture shows the product's feature - the drawing is blurred with some water.


We can read about this series at the back of the package: it has best quality pigments, the pencils are lightfast; the SV system was used while producing this product. There is also a colour chart with lghtfastness marks (most of the shades have three stars).


Albrecht Dürer pencils are beautifully designed - they are hexagonal, so they don't roll all over the table; they are color-coordinated so it's easy to find a particular shade. The name of the series, company's and colours' names are all silver. Moreover, there is a small silver brush which informs that this product is watersoluble. The ending of each pencil is rounded, with a silver strip.



In a set of 12 assorted colours, you'll find such shades:

- White 101 ***
- Cadmium Yellow 107 **
- Dark Cadmium Orange 115 **
- Deep Scarlet Red 219 **
- Magenta 133 **
- Phthalo Blue 110***
- Light Ultramarine 140 ***
- Light Green 171 ***
- Emerlad Green 163 ***
- Burnt Ochre 187 **
- Walnut Brown 177 ***
- Black 199 ***



I must say that I really fell in love with this series! Albrecht Dürer pencils are softer than Polychromos. The paper can be covered fast with them. They are highly-pigmented and fully watersoluble (unlike other watercolour pencils that I have, like Derwent's and Koh-I-Noor's). The colours are vivid. I don't have many shades but I can create colorful illustrations using only 24 pencils:







They look great with waterproof fineliners.
The drawing changes completely after using some water:



They sharpen very well, but, because they are wider than other pencils, I can use only one of my sharpners :( Unfortunately they don't fit into my electrical sharpener (for 6-8 mm pencils).
I tried to use different sharpeners, but I only destroyed the varnish covering the wooden case:


Because of the softness, they have to be sharpened often, so they use up quickly; moreover, they break sometimes. They don't keep a sharpened tip for a long time like Polychromos. They are good for smaller works (it would be hard to cover bigger sizes).


To sum up, I think this is a great product! I got used to Albrecht Dürer series so I don't use my watercolour set anymore :)
We don't need many colours to get a nice, colorful picture. Then can be used like normal pencils, without water - they allow to draw layer on layer and the blending is great.








* A short note about Albrecht Dürer was taken from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer

* It is forbidden to copy this material (and images included in it) without the author's permission.