The Derwent Drawing range is HEAVENLY! I have gone through 2 full sets! I always buy them when I find them on sale and have them tucked away whenever I need them. They will always be a forever purchase for me. I had a lengthy layover in Switzerland this summer and bought a 40 set of the Luminance with a couple of other open stock colors. Now that I'm watching this, I'm itching to get the Derwent Lightfast pencils! A pricey hobby, but it brings so much happiness :) Love your videos!
Those are totally your colors! I’m working on a swatching project too, but I’ve opted for punched out cards on big metal rings so I can take out the colors and make palettes. It is SO fun and has helped me become more familiar with the colors I have.
Oh that's so cool, thanks for sharing! I've started a similar thing though less advanced than your metal rings idea 🤩 With mine I have swatched watercolours on tall narrow sheets of paper that I can fold either side of each swatch. There is a page for cool greens, a page for warm greens, cool reds, warm reds etc. with the idea that I can isolate one colour from each page by folding the others back, and put multiple sheets together to form my palette of the day. I love being able to quickly see whether the chosen colours zing together. Is yours essentially a colour fan by joining them with a metal ring at one corner? my personal colour analysis palette was given to me as a fan like that, SO fun to use!
Yay! Love Derwent Drawing pencils, the buttery smoothness 🧈 and thickness on the page is a treat. Thanks for showing colors i don't have, it helps me decide which ones to add to my art materials 📝 🌈 I also have a bunch of derwent pencils from over 20 yrs ago still going strong! One of my favorites is kingfisher blue, also crimson lake ❤
Yes yellow ochre is such a rich yellow, it's full of so much colour, reminds me a bit of boiled egg yolk. Solway blue I see as almost a blue-lilac grey, quite pale and I use it as a cool white on dark paper.
I have used them for years and thought that they were so underrated. I use them quite a bit for coverage because I can really fill the background with them and many in the Lightfast set are similar but not as waxy and that is why I use odorless mineral spirits in a Caran’de ache waterbrush that has a fiber tip to move the pigment and for all the painting it takes away that waxy shine which clashes a bit when medium mixing with watercolor. The brush holds the oms and does not leak at all and self cleans. Getting an effortless gradient is easy now. I do work with the complete sets of Derwent Lightfast and some of the Procolours, Polychromos and the Luminance. My favorite paper for just the pencils and pastels is Clairfontaine Pastelmat. I have used everything out there but on this soft pigment grabbing substrate the pencils go far and blend even with ear buds. Buying the full sheets is the best deal. I normally get light brown, dark brown, grey and sienna. You can layer white right over the darkest colors. I just used those light lavender colors on the edge of a cliff that blended into the foliage green and the purple blended with a sepia to get some color chroma in a painting that I am working on. The most unimaginable colors amazingly are at times the very ones that work. Happy painting. I do still have 3 Prismas😊
I had watched another video of yours on the set of 30 Luminance you keep at your Mom's and as I was watching I thought uh...I wonder if she's tried more than Chinese White? lol I love these pencils and keep them in a messenger bag for my nature journaling. I do find that I need to add about a dozen additional pencils and I continue to refine those choices. Mother Nature loves to throw in bright colors in her palette! Reds for poppies, woodpeckers, brighter blues for skies, yellows and orangesand a few more greens. I live near Mt Rainier National park in Washington state and nature can be quite bright at times. Like almost everyone who has tried these pencils, I really eish Derwent would double the line and add these missing colors (oh, and red and blue-violets).
I just love the Derwent Drawing pencils. They are so satisfying and creamy and there's something so relaxing about knowing the entire palette works so beautifully together! Between those and the Lightfast pencils, Derwent has become a favorite brand. Have a great week, Natasha!
Thanks for swatching these! I’ve been keen to try pencils and so nice to see them all swatched out. The luminance look great too, but cant justify yet while Im learning.
Derwent Lightfast - Van Dyke Brown, it's a lovely mid-tone brown - like Dairy Milk Chocolate . It's not something I would usually buy, but it came in the 24 set. Love the drawing set too!
Thank you, Natasha. I can’t watch your swatching videos without wishing some of these companies would come out with Natasha Newton collections, because I’m just so drawn to your color choices/palettes! Love the Derwent Drawing collection - every single color combines well with the others. So helpful for palette-challenged people like myself. Ignites the imagination!
So happy for this installment in your coloured pencil series.When I was much younger and starting out as an artist,the very first artist quality medium I was able to afford and purchased was at the tome a full set of the Derwent Inktense pencils. and they are still my go to pencils to this day. But I actually own all of Derwents pencil ranges as they have pioneered many types,but I also love the Derwent Drawing pencils as I love tha they are a sort of capsule collection of muted colours.I can see why you love the Drawing pencils as they are perfect for your landscapes annd for your mixed media work as well and the colour pallette of this range of pencils is full of as you would say "Natasha colours" Great to see in your sketchbok as well our style is really evolving,I loved the studies of trees,that were from life but still in your sytle as well.Always inspired by haering your insights for choosing these pencils and the colours you love so much and how they inspire you in your stunning magical artworks and sketches. (matt)
Brown Ochre is one of my favorite Luminance, so I get it😂 The derwent drawing pencils are so precious to me. I love the unusual muted colors and how the entire set fits together like a perfect color palette.🥰 ❤
my favorites are still Luminance, but Lightfast is also wonderful. I add to my collections bit by bit so it will take me a while to get a whole set of anything. Its so fun to see you so excited about browns, lol, but that's how I am with blues, never enough!
Thank you for another relaxing swatching video, so many super colours and your landscapes at the beginning were lovely🙏🏼 I do love the muted colours in the Derwent Drawing set and they are just a joy to use. I'm now tempted to get myself a few of those Lightfast greens💚
the derwent drawing pencils are so pretty, I love that they’re all so earthy ✨ i’ve been debating whether or not to get them since I prefer harder pencils, but I think i’ll have to try a few! your videos are always my #1 reference if I want to see what a color or art medium or brand is like, I feel like I can judge the texture & color much better than even the brand swatches lol :) if anyone happens to read this & also likes hard pencils, here are my favs: faber-castell polychromos, tombow irojiten, & prismacolor verithin. these are also hard pencils (imo, they hold a nice point still), but they’re just a bit softer than the ones i previously mentioned: caran d’ache pablo, derwent studio, & faber-castell goldfaber :P
Wow, thank you! This is so nice to hear. I try my best to accurately depict the colours and textures in the videos (even when I would sometimes prefer to add a bit of colour editing or a subtle filter or something - but if I do that I know that it won't show the colours accurately). Thank you also for sharing your favourite hard pencils! That's so helpful. :)
Derwent as a whole just always low-key makes its way into my favorite supplies. They don't look splashy, and I don't even specifically aim to buy them, but whenever I do, no matter if it's the Derwent Drawing pencils, their charcoal line, or even the Graphitint pencils that I bought on a whim over a decade ago...!
I love the Derwent Drawing pencils! My daughter gifted me the Derwent Lightfast pencils a couple years ago and love the Derwent products. They've become my new addiction. The Drawing pencils are great for landscape but are also wonderful with portrait drawing as well
Very nice colors, not planning on buying any yet because I'm currently in the process of swatching dot-cards with the full range of Daniel Smith, Schmincke and Winsor & Newton. Very fun to see the color changing of my dirty paint water but really time consuming. Hoping to get some nice colors out of this that do not have cadmium in it and will probably try to skip the cobalt's also but they are so pretty 😭.
Weird question for you - do you organize and store your colored pencils by brand or color? I have always kept my pencils sorted by brand but as my collection grows I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be more convenient to organize them into groups of color, easier to remember what colors I have. What do you do?
I have a deep love of derwent pencils going back more years than I care to admit... Can anyone enlighten me on what the lettering embossed near the top of the pencils means? Is it pigment info? Thanks x
@NatashaNewtonArt actually I think it may be a batch code thing. You'll see it near the pointy end of the pencils but upon use it will be sharpened off. Thanks 😊 so enjoy your channel
I love the drawing range of Derwent so soft and beautiful. I have one lightfast pencil, in strawberry such a pretty color. I started a collection of luminance colors, that I really enjoy. I honestly have all the pencils I would ever need. (lol don't we all?) I am pretty sure I have all that I need in every art supply I own. I now need to just keep using them and only replace what I use up and weed out the rest. :) Lovely video I always enjoy watching! Thank you for sharing!!
I finally got to try the Derwent Drawing at an art store, the other day. I need help! I need someone to tell me it's OK to have some colored pencils, because these are amazing! The colors are very interesting and the feel of the core on paper is just amazing!
OMG… I found your Channel and I’m going broke! HaHa! I bought soooo many things! I’m going to have to schedule my viewing so I don’t buy too much! I love your videos! Thank you!
Real love the drawn landscapes, made me wonder if you embroider at all. I recently found some amazing embroidery artists who create landscapes in thread and I think your style of drawing would translate well in thread.
Was it the group doing the slow stitch challenge? I lost them but was watching different people stitching a garden path. Each prompt to add another feature to the scene. One a bench or a water feature or a bird. It's so charming
I don't embroider, but I have done a little in the past (many years ago!), and I know what you mean about the landscapes. People often say that my painted work - or elements of it - looks stitched too. :)
Thank you very much for your video, it convinced me to buy the Drawing set. What paper would you recommend for it? I tried some lightly strucuted (Lana Dessing) that I use for my Polychromos but I feel that this is not a good choice. I have tried some mixed media but this wasn't either. I fail to lay down a consistent color with all the papers I have tried.
I love the Derwent drawing pencils so much, they are my absolute favourite pencil! I started with just a couple and then bought the set of 12. Very soon after buying the set of 12, I picked up the remaining colours so I’d have all 24. They are just the perfect set of colours for me. I’ve never used such creamy colours before. I’m always drawn to the colours you choose because I primarily do landscapes (with occasional buildings thrown into the mix). Your selection of lightfast pencils is beautiful.
It helps to have near PERFECT handwriting when doing these books... I have found that colored pencils just take too long to use for someone with only a bit of time for art... too fiddley, too much layering, just too long.
I only have 10 DL pencils so far but 8 of them match your colors 😄. Natasha what pencil sharpener do you use on your Derwent drawing pencils since the lead is a bit thicker? Thanks. Love these kind of videos. There are so many colors I want to add to my collection. Especially the greens and blues you have shown.
I guess I’ll take the plunge…going for the Derwent Drawing pencils. I found an entire set of the Derwent Procolors at an estate sell for $10! They had barely been used. I do use them, but would not re buy them, they are way to hard and hurt my hand if I use them for too long. Which is why I probably got a great deal on them! 😊
I too love the Derwent drawing. If I were allowed to expand the line I'd go for very dark purple and green, similar value as inky blue. I'd also add a few very light value colors... yellow ochre , a pink like oyster, and a lighter version of light aqua for horizon sky and little flashes of highlights. Aside from that it truly is a perfect collection. Enjoy your holiday!
.. those beautiful DDP's have been sitting in my favourites for a loooooong time, I was finally in a position to buy them last week - Hooray & Hallerlewyah! 🤣 They are as delicious as I thought they would be. Also, before checking out, four of the Derwent Metallic's 'fell' 😉 into my basket .. copper, pewter, antique gold & purple - yummy!! Muchest of love to you darling xx xx
i just finished my first drawing on vellum, using nothing but derwent drawing pencils. So much fun, i was able to erase down to the clear paper, the pencils go on very creamy and blend easily. My only regret is the limited palette.
Derwent Drawing are my absolute favourite pencils too, I find their texture to be the most agreeable among the color pencils. The colors are so gentle and subtle, but I would really like their color range to be wider. Do you happen to know which color pencils have similar texture to the Derwent Drawing? All other pencil brands I tried just don't feel the same. And I would really love to expand the palette with pencils that are as creamy and soft.
I bought the Derwent drawing pencils a year ago and I love them. They’re so different in texture to use from other pencils but mainly, I like the soft muted colours. Your idea about just taking them away with you is great. So many times I’ve been overwhelmed by my ever increasing collection of pencils! I love the Solway blue, and as we’re off to the Solway coast, I might do the same and restrict myself to them. I have also, 14 of the Luminance pencils, recently purchased and I’d love to get some Lightfast, as you’ve inspired me now! Thank you!
such yummy colors! I have a 12-set of the drawing pencils, but after watching this, I need (and yes it's a need, not a want...lol) the full set. Thanks for sharing those with us!
Love Derwent drawing and Derwent Lightfast, I have spotted a few colours in the lightfast here that I am going to add to my wish list. I love the idea of a swatch book, would save me accidentally buying a colour I already have or searching through my pencils to see if I have a colour before buying and then still accidentally purchasing one I already own (this has happened to me a couple of times now 🤦🏻♀️ 😆). Also loving the sketches at the start of the video as well. x
I had a grand total of 6 derwent drawing pencils when I first found your channel, but funnily enough, I've somehow acquired a collection of all 24 shades since then 😂 To be fair, I didn't take a lot of convincing - the ones I had were probably my most used sketching pencils. I've never tried the Procolour range, and I only have one Lightfast that I got as a sample (violet, which is not a colour I regularly use). I did recently get a 24 tin of Chromaflow for a bit of a bargain price, because it was in the older style of pencil from before they revamped the range. There are some lovely colours and they are really smooth and vibrant; worth checking out if you spot a colour that calls out to you.
Hello Natasha! I know you’re very experienced using colored pencils and I was wondering if you could tell me which one has the least amount of breakage/fall out. What I mean is when you use it, which one crumbles the least and does not leave bits all over the page. Also, I love using them on watercolor paper, good idea or bad idea? Thanks!
You need something like Faber-Castell Polychromos or Holbein Artists' colored pencils! Also: watercolour paper is good if it works for you! I like using pencils on watercolour paper too. :)
I have the Drawing pencils too. I have little drawing skill yet but love the colours! Inktense are fab too. There’s such joy in how easy Derwent products are to use and get a lovely mark from
Natasha I find you and your videos both so calming and so inspiring! I love to watch them to help me relax and also learn more about the art supplies that are out there in the world. Great video as always 🥰