There are some new colored pencils in town ~ SoHo Urban Artist Professional Colored Pencils
Here's what Jerry's Artarama's site says about them:
Professional colored pencils developed to meet the demands of artists!
In developing their new line of artists' colored pencils, SoHo Urban Artist went directly to artists themselves to find out precisely what is needed in a high quality colored pencil today. Working from near unanimous requests, SoHo created a line of colored pencils that met or exceeded artists' requirements across the board!
Using highly pigmented, vibrant colors, every shade in the 72-color line has superior light resistance for brilliant and lasting works of art. The 3.8mm leads are securely glued into the hexagonal basswood casings, so the pencils sharpen easily and do not break. The smooth, buttery consistency ensures that each stroke glides across the paper, and multiple layers are made possible by the minimal hazing of these superb colors. Each pencil is lacquered seven times to a smooth, satin black finish, and the tips are dipped in corresponding colors for quick recognition. Produced in conjunction with Cretacolor of Austria, one of the world's oldest and most respected pencil manufacturers, SoHo Professional Colored Pencils are truly an artists' color: designed to last and developed with you in mind!
If you go to the page about them at Jerry's, there's a video and a few reviews. I'm confused because the guy in the video says they're wax based, but the reviews compare them to (my beloved) Polychromos, which are oil. So which is it?
The price is right, so I'm tempted. Like I need more colored pencils.
If anyone tries these, please leave a comment and tell me what you think!
**update - I ordered a set, so we shall see.
7 comments:
Oh Paula do try them for us will you? LOL Like I need a new brand of pencils either. I have heard of them but barely. I don't know of anyone who is using them yet.
If they can be proven by the CPSA to meet the ASTM lightfast standard then that would make them appealing. A lot of brands profess superior lightfastness but then fail the rigorous testing badly.
Says wax based but containing less wax so wax bloom will be less of a problem. Love those sorts of claims! :-) Oh well, always nice to have more pencil brands to choose from.
Hmmmmm!--Thanks for the link, new pencils are always interesting- gonna take a look myself. I love my Polychromos so much though, it will take a lot to make me fall for another. Fun to try them anyway. :-)
These seem too good to be true - or maybe I'm just cynical. LOL. Still, they look like I may 'need' them in the future. Thanks for telling us about them, Paula. x
Let me know how you like them and whether they blend well with prismacolor! Thanks for sharing this!
Paula - I have a set. I ordered them almost as soon as they had them in stock. I've been so displeased with the Prismacolors since Sanford moved the manufacturing to Mexico. Their quality stinks now. The SoHo's are ok. They don't have quite the pigment load of the Prismacolors or Derwent Colorsofts. SoHo's are slightly harder than prismas, so they are easier to sharpen - except that they don't fit in my electric sharpener! Just ever so slightly too big. They are wax based. I don't think that they would be any more or less colorfast than any other wax-based media. I think that I will use them mostly for undercoating and then put the prismas on top. The SoHo's do have some nice blues and greens in them.
Check out my blog at tintsandhues.blogspot.com for some examples of work done with them.
I purchased one So Ho pencil when I was at Jerry's just to try it. They have a rather large barrel and don't fit well into my pencil sharpener. They are also harder than the Prismacolor and Coloursoft pencils. But they do seem to blend well enough with other pencils.
Pencils are a very photogenic subject
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