Oil-Based Coloured Pencils

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