Prismacolor Premier Coloured Pencils review

Article written: February 2016

" Thick cores of color last long to bring bold statements to life, while soft leads make them the best tool to blend in or shade away.
They’re vivid and intense in one stroke and subtle and soft in the next, making them perfect for any project, big or small.
Smooth coverage and a wide array of colors to choose from make it easy to find a soft spot for these premium pencils. "

Taken from the Prismacolor website - www.prismacolor.com

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Base: ​Wax based

Hard or soft lead:  Soft

Lightfast rating:  ATSM-6901

Costs: RRP £1.60 (ave)

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150 colour Box set

​Colours Available: 150
26 Greens, 23 Blues, 15 pinks, 15 purples, 13 yellows, 8 oranges, 6 reds, 19 greys,  16 browns, 1 black, 1 white,  3 metallics, 1 red/blue, 3 neon
(colour counts are estimated due to working from a colour chart, actual colours may vary)

Sets Available:
Open stock (Individually) In tins of 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 96, 132 or 150 colours

HISTORY
The Prismacolor pencil was launched in 1938 by the Eagle Pencil Company (founded 1856), and was known as the Eagle Prismacolor (known today as the soft core range). Berol Ltd. purchased the Eagle Pencil Co. in 1969 and renames the pencil Berol Prismacolor. In 1995, Berol Ltd. was acquired by Sanford L.P, a division of the Newell brands, which includes a large portfolio of brands including PaperMate and Sharpie. Sanford sold the Karismacolor pencil, which was the European version of the Prismacolor pencils. Sadly Karisma pencils were discontinued in 2005. 

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ADVANTAGES
* Vibrant and strong colour application
* Soft pencils
* Great blendibility
* Relatively Cheap
* Large range of colours
* Extensively available in the US at great prices
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DISADVANTAGES
* Many colours have poor lightfast qualities
* Many complain of poor quality wood and breakages
   with complaints ongoing for at least 10 years
* High wax bloom
* Few UK suppliers for open stock or sets

Lightfast qualities

Before deciding on a coloured pencil range, aware that I could spend a lot of money on an unsuitable product, I always run an online search first. I do this so I can find out how lightfast the range of colours are and noted that many of these pencils have low lightfast ratings. If you are creating art for sale, using colours with poor lightfast ratings could see your masterpieces fade quicker than those with higher ratings.
You could use the most lightfast ones (I & II), leaving out the low numbers, but this only leaves 84 colours out of 150, why should you buy a full set?
If you wanted to sell the piece, you could protect the drawing with a UV fixative (such as Loxley (UK) or Krylon (USA), choosing a museum quality glass such as True Vue during framing for ultimate protection. Although this costs more, it will help to protect your artwork from premature fading. You may not want to sell the original piece. Using it to produce giclee prints means  lightfast issues in the pigments of the pencil do not matter.

Lightfast and colour charts:

The Lightfast Chart (135 colours only)

View the Prismacolor Premier pencils PDF sheet

Blenders & Burnishers - How to use them

How a sharpener can help your pencil techniques

Karismacolor pencils - Prismacolors' European pencil

Coloured pencil mini tutorial - How to layer

Colour tones available:

Any pencil range that offers a wide selection of pastel tones and a wide selection of brown and grey tones will always attract my interest as these are the colours I use the most. The beiges, peaches and pinks are great for skin tones and the larger a collection of browns and grey tones, the better. I am happy to see that the browns and greys offer the best lightfast qualities too which is particularly good for a Pet Artist as these tend to be the most used colours, however the worst lightfast culprits tend to be the Blues, purples & Pinks so do be aware before using these colours on large sections of a drawing on which the original will be sold on unless it is sufficiently protected with UV glass.
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Blendability & vibrancy

Prismacolor pencils are great for blending, possibly one of the best I have tried as they are so pliable. The image below shows how the colours blend into each other rather well, more so if using the Prismacolor blender, but also gives you an idea of the strength of the colour too. 

Colours blended together using the Prismacolor blender

Premier pencils packaging

My thoughts on these pencils:

​I decided to purchase a small tin of Prismacolor Premier after seeing so many people using them, many giving rave reviews and producing some amazingly vibrant and detailed pencil work. I personally love these pencils - they remind me of an Oil pencil (if ever there was such a thing, a little like those wax crayons I used as a kid) they are so thick and buttery and they blend wonderfully with the pigments being as vibrant as the 'leads' appear, my main issue is both with the poor lightfast qualities of many of the colours and ongoing quality issues which puts me off using them in any of my work. I shall keep an eye out for an improvement in these issues and if both improve, my Coloured pencil collection may just grow a little more because I really do love the wide range of colours they have.

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Negatives: brittleness and sharpening leads:

Amongst these reviews were many complaints though such as "the leads continuously break", "the wood is warped", "the 'lead' falls out the barrel of the casing" etc.etc. however, whilst trialling these pencils, I did not have any problems but I suspect if I used them on a daily basis needing to order open stock regularly, I may find some are prone to such problems. If you wish to read an in depth review regarding these issues, click the link:  Pencil Topics

​​Softer pencils are more likely to break by their very nature and you may find that it works better by sharpening to a shorter point rather than a longer one, as a longer lead can put on extra pressure, resulting in more breakages. Find out more about this by clicking the link below.

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Looking for a UK stockist? Worldwide shipping is available too - click here

Another UK stockist selling sets and single colours in boxes of 12 - They also ship worldwide