Watercolor Pencil Comparison

April 2, 2024

How much should I spend on watercolor pencils?

This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, I may earn a commission. The products listed in the blog are mentioned because they are the watercolor pencils that I own today. Thank you.

Recently someone in my network asked, "How do you judge the quality of watercolor pencils?"

Her question inspired me to compare the four different types of watercolor pencils I own. Before today, I mixed and used my different watercolor pencil sets interchangably. But she inspired me to compare them side-by-side.

I have four different types of watercolor pencils from a few art subscription boxes and middle school:

Crayola (Middleschool)
Faber-Castell Goldfaber Aqua (Let's Make Art)
Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer (Faber-Castell Try It Box)
Derwent InkTense (SketchBox)

I use the Crayolas still because they're nice vibrant colors, but compared to the other brands they don't blend out as nicely. The Crayola leave clear color pencil lines. I have one Faber Castell Albrecht Durer—it was beautiful and smooth as I added water to it. Unfortunately, I couldn't compare how it blends with other colors since the art box just gave me the one. I've used the Faber Castell Goldfaber Aqua the most, but they blend out less well than the Albrecht Durer and the Derwent Inktense. I recently acquired the Derwent Inktense and I thought they were awesome because they're so vibrant. Comparing them to the others they blend much nicer than the Crayola and Goldfaber Aqua.

First Layer

Here are the swatches before I blended out with water.

Here are the same swatches once I blended with water. I used a lot of water, so they came out pretty bloomy.

Second Layer

Here are the swatches after I added a second light layer of watercolor pencil and then blended out with water.

Third Layer

Adding a third layer of watercolor pencil and blending out made them all so much smoother. I could definitely see how Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer is so much smoother than InkTense.

For some reason, succulents are my go-to when I pull out the watercolor pencils. I began my succulent obsession with the Succulent Project on Let's Make Art. I didn't create these paintings for comparison purposes, but despite using multiple brands in some of the painting they might help you compare the quality.

Upper Left: Faber-Castell Goldfaber Aqua, Upper Right: Crayola and Goldfaber Aqua, Bottom: Derwent Inktense

Price Comparison

Here are the prices for each for a set of 12 pencils. I've been getting by with sets of 6. Even though I only have black, brown, yellow, blue, green and red pencils, I can create any other color I need because the water blends the colors so well. I also sometimes mix in watercolor to add to the variety.

I would splurge on the Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer since they blend so beautifully. If that's a little too expensive, I think the Derwent InkTense are a really vibrant option.