Your Expert Guide to Art Supplies in the UK
Somewhere between “I fancy trying colouring again” and actually clicking “buy,” most people freeze. There are tins with 24 pencils and tins with 150. There are pencils that cost less than a coffee and pencils that cost more than a week’s food shop. A coloured pencil set sounds like the simplest art purchase you could … Read more
Stand in front of the pencil aisle at any UK stationer and you’ll see the same puzzle: a tin of twelve for a few pounds sitting next to a wooden box that costs more than a week’s shopping. So what’s actually going on between cheap vs expensive coloured pencils, and is the pricier tin genuinely … Read more
Somewhere between “I fancy trying colouring” and “I own £200 of pencils I’ve used twice” lies a very sensible middle ground: cheap coloured pencils. Not the pound-shop ones that snap the second you look at them funny, but genuinely decent sets that happen to cost less than a round of coffees for four. Cheap coloured … Read more
Stand in front of the pencil aisle in any UK art shop and you’ll understand the problem instantly: forty different tins, all promising to unlock your inner artist, none of them explaining what actually separates a lovely set from a waste of a tenner. A coloured pencil set for beginners is, in the simplest possible … Read more
Stand in front of an art shop wall of coloured pencils for long enough and you’ll start to feel a bit like you’re choosing a wand at Ollivander’s. Every tin promises “buttery,” “vibrant,” “professional grade” — and somewhere on the box, in small print, sits the detail that actually matters: whether that pencil is wax … Read more
Pick up a lump of graphite and you can shade. Pick up an oil based coloured pencil and you can build light out of nothing — layer by stubborn, waxy-smooth layer, until a bowl of clementines looks wet enough to lick. That’s the appeal, and also the trap: walk into the pencil aisle (or, more … Read more
Stand in front of an art shop shelf for more than thirty seconds and you’ll feel it: the quiet tug-of-war between the tidy tin of pencils and the little metal box of pans. Watercolour pencils vs watercolour paints isn’t just a shopping question, it’s a question about how you actually want to spend your Sunday … Read more
Somewhere between a sketchbook and a paint box sits one of the most underrated tools in the art world, and if you’ve typed “best watercolour pencils” into a search bar tonight, you’re about to discover why so many artists quietly swear by them. A watercolour pencil is exactly what it sounds like: a coloured pencil … Read more
Stand in front of an art supplies shelf for long enough and two tins will keep catching your eye: the dark green of Faber-Castell Polychromos and the black-and-gold of Prismacolor Premier. Faber-Castell vs Prismacolor coloured pencils is one of the oldest debates in coloured pencil art, and it’s not going away, because both ranges genuinely … Read more
The best coloured pencils for adult colouring combine soft, pigment-rich cores with break-resistant leads, so you get smooth laydown and easy blending without constantly reaching for the sharpener. Whether you’re filling in a mandala on the sofa or working through an intricate botanical spread at the kitchen table, the pencil in your hand matters more … Read more