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Sunday, 14 February 2021

CARAN D'ACHE Museum Watercolour Pencils

Caran D'Ache create a number of different ranges of pencils, pens, fountain pens, crayons and other art and office materials. While I own a few of their beautiful pens and pencils, I am most interested in their watercolour pencils. I've written about the Museum range before - the original clutch style set that is no longer available. 

Over a number of years, the Swiss has redesigned the range as traditional pencils. 

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - full range of 76

I was given a set of 12, as part of a generous Faculty 'goodie bag' when I taught at the last Urban Sketchers symposium in 2019, and have had a few in my sketching kit to explore. These are terrific watercolour pencils, and though the most expensive range as far as I am aware, they deserve a full post. The colours are often unique so many might be useful to add to other collections.

I bought the rest of the range as single pencils and have placed them all in a 96 slot Global pencil case (affiliate link) for easy storage and transporting. They are also available in many beautiful boxed sets. You can see them at Jacksonsart.com (affiliate links) or on the Caran d'Ache website. 

Caran d'Ache set of 12 Museum Pencils

The website gives pigment information on each colour, and each pencil has the lightfast rating stamped onto it. The range of 76 colours has a number of single pigment colours and some lovely subdued hues. While I prefer the pencils to be painted in a solid colour so it is really easy to find the colour you are looking for, the colours at the end of each grey pencil are accurate.

I've drawn these swatches up on 300gsm hot pressed paper, as many people use smooth paper for pencil. I've coloured each swatch from darker to lighter, and added water to the right-hand-side, then drawn back into the wet wash with the pencil to show the wet pencil strength.


The colours are always difficult to show accurately. Yellow is slightly brighter than it appears here and Golden Yellow is a classic clean deep yellow colour. The three yellows are lovely choices for a cool, mid and warm yellow.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - White, Primrose, Naples Ochre, Lemon Yellow, Yellow, Golden Yellow


These are reasonably accurate, but the Vermilion is just on the orange side of a mid red and the Light Cadmium Red is between an orange red and a coral. Scarlet is a definite crimson colour, as it appears here.
 
Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Golden Cadmium Yellow (Hue), Orange, Cornelian, Vermilion, 
Light Cadmium Red (hue), Scarlet.


Anthraquinoid Pink is a little more coral than it appears here. The other colours look quite accurate. Violet Pink is very like Potter's Pink. Purplish Red is a lovely quinacridone magenta option.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils- Anthraquinoid Pink, Crimson Aubergine, Carmine Lake, Violet Pink, 
Dark Plum, Purplish Red.


It is wonderful to see these beautiful single pigment violets. PV16 abd PV15 are quite gentle pigments and the pencil versions are lovely. Cobalt pigments appear in the blues :-) These swatches are accurate in colour. Purples and blues are usually easier to show.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Manganese Violet, Periwinkle Blue, Violet, Ultramarine Violet, 
Light Cobalt Blue, Genuine Cobalt Blue.


The colours shown here are very accurate. While most of the colours are five stars for lightfastness, Dark Ultramarine is only 3 due to PB1. Night Blue is the indanthrone blue pigment and Phthalocyanine Blue is a really useful cool blue in any palette.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Middle Cobalt Blue, Dark Ultramarine, Night Blue, Prussian Blue, 
Light Blue, Phthalocyanine Blue


There are more lovely single pigment colours here. Chromium Oxide Green is a very opaque colour in watercolours but a really useful colour as a pencil.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Permanent Blue, Ice Blue, Turquoise Blue, Light Malachite Green, 
Cobalt Green, Chromium Oxide Green


This set of greens are lovely and earthy. It usually takes a few pigments to create earthy greens. 

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Moss Green, Dark Phthalocyanine Green, Olive, Light Olive, 
Green Ochre, Olive Yellow.


Personally I find these less useful colours, and not hugely different, though the Emerald Green is slightly bluer than it looks here. It is good to see a single pigment Phthalocyanine Green.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Spring Green, Bright Green, Grass Green, Emerald Green, 
Beryl Green, Phthalcyanine Green.


There is a lovely range of earth colours. 

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Dark Sap Green, Brown Olive 50%, Olive Brown, Brown Ochre, 
Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre.


Genuine Umber was the name of the original 548 colour, now just called Umber. It's a useful cool yellowish-brown. 

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Genuine Umber (discontinued), Umber (current version), Saffron, 
Light Flesh 10%, Apricot, Cinnamon.


Cinnamon, Burnt Ochre and Terracotta are all similar variations of a burnt Sienna. Brown is a little more like an Indian red and Chestnut a burnt umber. Russet is a lovely colour but not as crimson as it looks here - more of a burnt coral colour.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Burnt Ochre, Brown, Terracotta, Russett, Burnt Sienna 50%, Chestnut.


Raw Umber is like a deep chocolate colour - quite warm, and Cassel earth is another option for a cool dar brown. 

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Raw Umber, Cassel Earth, Dark Flesh 50%, French Grey, Sepia 50%, Sepia 10%


I like the slight blue tint of Payne's Grey. Of the blacks, Ivory is warmer and Black cooler.

Caran d'Ache Museum pencils - Steel Grey, Payne's Grey, Slate Grey, Ivory Black, Black.


These pencils are a joy to use. They wet and activate with ease and can be used alone or with regular pencils, watercolour, inks or whatever you wish. 

Happy sketching!
  

22 comments:

  1. Thanks Jane.

    I have a set of Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils and I am looking for some good material on learning how to use them. Most of what I have found on Youtube is people creating a palette card of swatches then just using a wet brush to wet the swatches and then paint with the brush. There has to be some better techniques that take advantage of the color pencil aspects of using them.

    Can you recommend any resources for using color pencils that don't treat them like watercolor pans or tubes?

    THanks.

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    1. Hi Marshall...I'm just getting started in watercolor pencils too. Here's how I'm getting started now. I purchased the book Quick & Clever Watercolour Pencils by Charles Evans. He also has several youtube videos on using watercolor pencils in landscape painting. So I'm reading the book, watching the videos, and "copying" his work as I learn these techniques. He uses Lyra Rembrandt Aquarell Artists Pencils. The set has a lot of the standard colors I'm missing from Faber Castell so I've ordered this set too, in a 36 pencil tin. Let me know if you've discovered any good resources. Karen Casebeer

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  2. I did a huge three hour demonstration for Faber Castell showing them being used in many ways but I don't know if it has been published anywhere. They are an extraordinary tool, as you can use them wet or dry, with water or without, as washes or as lines, on dry paper or on wet paper. I suggest you explore them yourself and see what they are capable of doing.
    They would be a great topic for a workshop - maybe I could do on on Zoom?

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  3. I also own the full set of Museum Aquarelle pencils, but never paid attention to the pigment information until I happened upon this page. This will come in handy as I play around with mixing colors. Thank you for providing this valuable resource!

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  4. I've got your Daniel Smith ultimate mixing palette, is there a way to mix DS lavender?

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    1. DS Lavender is made from ultramarine, ultramarine violet and titanium white. Using the Ultimate Mixing Set you can come close with ultramarine, quinacridone rose and buff titanium, but it will be slightly more muted as there is a hint of creaminess in the buff titanium. Give it a try and see what you think. You'll only need a little rose.
      If you can't get close enough, of if it is a mix that you love and use a lot, go ahead and add it to your palette.

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  5. This review and the swatching is very helpful. I have about 50 of these. After looking at these swatches I’ll add about 10 more. Thank you for noting when a swatch is not represented completely accurately.

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  6. Hi Jane! Thank you for this post! As always, the information you’ve provided is extremely helpful! I have the whole set, and when I first got them I put them in a Global Arts case and tossed the box. I did keep the flyer/insert that came with it but have misplaced it. Your post has helped me figure out the names of many of the pencils because, on mine, not all the names are stamped on them. I love that your swatches have the actual pigment numbers. If I were to try and recreate your 20 color watercolor palette, which of the Museum Aquarelle pencils would you suggest for the closest approximate color matches?

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  7. Are the Museum pencils AP certified with ACMI? I’m finding differing info on this and thought asking someone who owns a set would be the best way to get correct info. If they are it would show with the AP seal on the packaging. Knowing they are non toxic helps in letting my littles share my tools and I don’t have to be careful about rinse water.

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  8. I bought the pencils individually so I don't have the information that may have come with a boxed set. It's best to check the manufacturer's website. However, as these are probably the most professional grade watercolour pencils available, I 'd be keeping them for your personal use :-)
    I would always be careful that rinse water is kept away from pets and children as much as possible.

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  9. Thank you so much for this post! I just acquired this set (it was a gift) and was searching for more indepth information about it. Love your blog overall and am subscribing to it!

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  10. Question - I'm starting on making my own swatch of these. Your blog post is a fantastic reference. But I have a few questions.
    (1) On the top row, you have a yellow listed as '101' but mine is "010". Was this just a typo on your part? I am only asking to make sure I've got the right color for each swatch, if that makes sense.
    (2) I found and downloaded the company's color chart for this set. I noticed their chart, your blog post, as well as other articles on the web I've seen all have a slightly different order to what came in my box. Meaning their chart and everyone's blog posts match up. But in my box it looks like, for example some yellows were put with the browns. Is there any benefit to having it one way or another for order of colors? Yes, I know I can be OCD. But thought I would at least ask.
    Thanks!
    Cindy

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    1. Whoops - you are right I've labelled that incorrectly. It will take some changing but I'lll sort it out eventually. I'll check all the others too.
      I tend to like to have the 'earth' yellows with the earth colours, and the brighter higher chroma yellows with the brighter colours.
      As far as your own set is concerned, arrange it in the way that makes the most sense for how you use the pencils.

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    2. Thank you for letting me know, Jane.
      No rush on fixing that typo. I didn't ask about it to point out a mistake. I truly just wanted to make sure that what I had in my box is correct.
      Thanks for letting me know why you arranged yours the way you did.
      You are right, of course. I should do what makes sense to me.
      Thanks again for this fantastic blog post and your blog in general.
      Take care,
      Cindy

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  11. Hi Jane. Ever since I got into colored/watercolor pencils a little under two years ago, I’ve become obsessed with color and the pigments used to get those colors. This is the first place I’ve found the actual pigments that make up each of the Caran d’Ache pencils. (Caran d’Ache is my favorite company). I’ve looked for this information on their Luminance, Pablo, and Pastel pencils as well but I can’t find it. Can you point me in the right direction? It would be so useful since I am working on swatching every brand of pencil I have and I would like to group them by color as closely to each other as possible. Thanks!

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    1. Hi! I saw your question and remembered that I wondered the same thing. I've loaded my saved information to my Google Drive and it's available for download, all the documents. You want to start with the document that starts with "My Notes...". You'll notice there is both a PDF and a Word document version of my notes. I included both so that people could download the Word document as well and update it with whatever notes they'd like. Even if this information doesn't provide you with everything, it may still help a great deal. Let me know if this was what you were looking for!

      Link to that Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1P4_SH917WtGaXdQyrYbY73A_bIi1LoQm?usp=sharing

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    2. Cindy, thank you! I am going to take a look now!

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  12. Cindy, I went to the CD website to pull all of their colour charts. Being a fanatic of everything that CD makes, I decided to save all of them since I now Own sets of them all. I was disappointed to see the colour charts for Pablo, Supracolor, Neocolor 1 and II don’t have the pigment information. The good news is the Luminance, Pastel Pencils, Museum Aquarelle, and Neopastel charts all have the pigments.

    I’m thinking they probably use the same pigments for the same colors across different products. I’m going to see if that’s true for the info I do have. If so, then I would assume it would be the case for the ones I don’t.

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  13. Hi - I came across this thread earlier and just now have a min to catch up. The book "Colored Pencil Painting Bible" by Alyona Nickelsen and published in 2009 has an appendix with a chart of Pablo colors including the color index codes. I'm not sure where she got this data - evidently when she wrote the book these things were not widely available.

    Pablo and Supracolor match each other, so being the sort of nerd who likes colors and spreadsheets! i matched up everything from the cd'a charts that had pigments with these codes to get a pretty good list. It is in three columns - sorted by type, then by cd'a 's code, then by color index. There are a couple that don't have a match and a couple that could be either of a couple mixtures. (I want to see if I can figure out which formula is right by playing around with the colors)

    Here is a link to a google drive with the sheet -

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gxSRaMLolXnJUevyJXVyaEvpTISWOrvT/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=105220632710227135610&rtpof=true&sd=true

    Have fun & Happy Christmas / New Year
    Tabby

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    1. Thank you! This is amazing & so kind of you to share- thank you so incredibly much!!! May I ask does the book contain info on polychromos and Albrecht Durer too?
      Again, thank you!!!

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  14. Thank you so much! May i ask, do you find that these pencils feel drier/ not quite as creamy as the albrecht durer when simply drawing with them on the paper?

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  15. They are absolutely stunning pencils and so pigmented. Have you noticed any pencils exhibiting a slight granulation (or texture?) when activating with water?
    Thank you so much again for the detailed review and swatches. I was fortunate enough to get a set .

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