Firstly I would like to say a big thank you and shout out to Kristopher Michaels, he was the person who brought my attention to this problem. I watched his Arteza dilemma video on YouTube (linked below).
This led me to Lori’s and Lindsey’s thoughts on this as well.
So shout outs to Lindsey Weirich from “The Frugal Crafter” and Lori G from “Color My World” YouTube channels (also linked below) they all have been incredibly honest with their reviews, opinions and thoughts on the Arteza Expert Pencil issues.
I am in no way affiliated with any of the above artists or their YouTube channels and I am certainly not an expert in the coloring pencil field, however I promised I would see how my Arteza Expert 72 Pencil set faired in comparison with their opinions. I thought about videoing the process but I am not versed in using YouTube nor on how to do the above successfully. I did however take a picture of my testing.
I chose various colors in the Arteza expert line, swatched them on mixed media card and then I used a stiff brush and water to see the results. I had not used the pencils before, as they were a gift and I was set on still using my prisma color pencils. Upon swatching them , they seemed somewhat creamy, they were pretty vibrant and they seemed to color quite well on the mixed media card I used them on.
Now before I go any further let me add that, Arteza’s pencils are labeled “Expert” and are not cheap at all. Compared to other companies I would classify them as mid price range, that are supposed to perform on an expert level. Granted plenty of other pencils out there also claim to be of expert quality and are also expensive and Artists have claimed that (Artezas) have out-performed some of those brands.
Then you have the cheaper end of the spectrum pencils that in some instances have been reviewed as outperforming some of the more expensive brands as well.
Of course you also have the highly praised expensive brands too that can be hundreds of dollars to purchase and in most cases according to artists are worth the price you pay for them. I guess in some aspects buying cheaper or mid range products puts you in the dilemma of, “you get what you paid for”, however that would be something I would expect from buying the really cheap products not pencils that are costing $30 – $80 dollars or more (depending on the set you buy and from where you purchased them.)
So back to the swatch test.
I tested 9 colored pencils, reds, blues, greens, yellows and browns. Weirdly it seems that some of the pigments in some colors did not budge even with a lot of water and a really hard scrub with the brush, I only did it for a few seconds on each color swatch, so I’m sure the worst of the colors being the reds and indigo blue, given they really moved around, would have been worse if I had spent more time on them.
I think the eggplant was he worst of them all.
I did not get the worst of worst results like Kristopher did, but I was not overly happy seeing the pigment move and lose color while I was using the brush on them. They are supposed to be resistant to water therefore they should not be able to have water placed on them and the color removed or the pigments moved about on the mixed media card, They are after all, NOT WATERCOLOR pencils.
So yes it appears Arteza is selling consumers crappy pencils, not water proof or resistant, which sucks to be honest!
Are they usable? of course they are as long as you don’t plan on applying any fixative or sealer to your artwork, Or mixing them near or with any wet mediums.
Are they what you thought you were paying good money for? Absolutely not!!!! However now the scam is out there, lets hope they fix the problem and do a recall so we can all get pencils that do what they say they should do!!!!! Maybe if all the artists with pencils that are faulty sign a petition to replace our products with the real thing, they may actually do that for us all, one can only dream LOL…
With all that said Arteza do also make watercolor pencils that I have used and they are pretty decent to watercolor with. Hopefully they continue to improve their product lines.
Below is the photo of the swatch I did and the result after adding water to them, and then the links to Kristopher , Lindsey and Lori’s channels. I would like to again thank Kristopher for his video that got me here and also to all 3 of them for their honest reviews and opinions on the Arteza pencil sets.
.Tested Swatch of Arteza’s They are still wet.
.The swatch card dry and the Pencils
Inside the Tin Of Pencils as you can see i have not used them until doing this swatch.
Happy Crafting! 😘 and if you are not subscribers to any of these artists subscribe and make their day 🙂
I hope you find this information helpful 🙂
Kristopher Michaels
Kristopher Michaels Website
Kristopher Michaels You Tube Channel
Lori ( she has 2+ videos on this subject)
Color My World 2 Color My World 1
Lindsay Weirich
The Frugal Crafter
