What Is a Colored Pencil？

In today's Internet age, there is not much use of pencils, unless you are an art lover or a young artist, you need a box of colored pencils to describe life. From eco wood pencils to mechanical pencils to color pencils of all sizes, the colorful colors are undoubtedly the first impression they give consumers. For professionals, a good pencil is not as simple as writing a few lines of words. Smooth and not easy to break lead is the basic criterion. Careful product classification brings a good experience to customers with different needs.

Colored Pencils are small wooden pencils that have a core of colored pigment and protective casing made of wood. While standard cute wooden pencils have a core of graphite and clay, a core of most of the colored pencils is made of wax, pigments, additives, and binding agents. Other colored pencils oil-based, water-soluble and some are even mechanical. 

An Early History of colored pencils is not too well documented. It is known that Ancient Greeks used wax-based crayons and Pliny the Elder recorded that Romans also used colored crayons based on wax. First colored big wooden pencil appeared in the 19th century and were used for “checking and marking”. Staedtler, German company owned by Johann Sebastian Staedtler invented colored oil pastel pencil in 1834. Production of colored pencils for art purposes started in early 20th century. First art color pencils were invented and produced in 1924 by Faber-Castell and Caran d’Ache. Berol started making its color pencils in 1938. Other manufacturers that also made color pencils during the late 30s and early 40s were Derwent, Progresso, Lyra Rembrandt, and Blick Studio. Few manufacturers claim that they invented the first (art) watercolor pencil.

There are different types of color branded wooden pencils depending on their intended use, such as eco best wooden pencils for writing. Artist-grade pencils have higher concentrations of high-quality pigments than student-grade colored pencils. They also have measured and defined characteristics like “lightfastness” ( the ability of a pigment to retain its original color appearance under exposure to light i.e. resistance to UV rays in sunlight), core durability, break, and resistance to water.

Student-grade colored pencils are of lower quality than artistic ones. They are made of inferior quality pigments and their lightfastness is lower although they don’t have defined characteristics like artistic grade but are, for instance, erasable and better suited for beginners.

Mechanical colored pencils are basically colored lead refill for standard mechanical pencils. They are produced in much narrower range than standard colored pencils but still they exist, such as the eco wooden mechanical pencil and so on.

Watercolor pencils (or water-soluble pencils) are pencils that can behave as watercolors if treated with damp brushes. They can also be used dry and then work as standard colored pencils. But the marks drawn can be painted with a wet watercolor pen and create a rendering effect. Because this pencil contains soluble pigments, it is not suitable for durability drawing.

Except for standard drawing, eco small wooden pencils can be used in animation because they are easier to erase than standard graphite pencils and they don't smudge as easily.

Although color pencils are not used much today, they are still so fascinating. Let us paint the beauty of life and work with a box of colored pencils.