Prismacolor Premier Pencils Review

For the past 4 years, I have been using Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils to do all my portraits. I know them like the back of my hand, so to speak. Read on for my honest review of Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils.

What They Are

Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils are wax based. The biggest set they sell (I believe) is 150, and they do have open stock, meaning you can get individual colours. I have the 36 set, which is more than enough to do most types of drawings, especially if you only do portraits. I have since purchased many individual shades to add to my collection.

The Good

I have used quite a few brands of coloured pencils, enough to give this a fair review. These, as far as wax based coloured pencils go, are among the best, if not the best. They are very creamy, highly blendable (especially the white pencil, which spreads like butter!) and easy to use. For reference, I use mainly Strathmore 300 series Bristol paper in both vellum and smooth–vellum if I want more layers (which I will get to shortly), smooth if I don’t do more than 2-3 layers of colours. Any Bristol quality paper will work very well with these pencils.

The Bad

As creamy and blendable as they are, they aren’t without flaws. One major problem I have with Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils is the much dreaded wax bloom. Several shades are worse than others–white, black and mostly the darker shades–while most only show wax bloom after a couple of layers. I live in Southern Ontario where the majority of the year is fairly dry and my indoor conditions are not humid, but when I laid down the black or the whites the wax bloom formed very quickly.

Another problem with wax core coloured pencils is that once you do a few layers–especially on Bristol smooth paper with little tooth–the wax will form a thick layer of gunk so you can no longer add any more layers. To circumvent this problem, I use Bristol vellum paper sometimes, though the result will look a bit more textured rather than like a glossy photo.

Here is a drawing I did using Strathmore 300 series Bristol vellum paper:

If you look closely, you can see wax bloom at the top of the hair. For some reason, the wax bloom surfaced almost immediately as soon as I laid down the black colour. Personally, I prefer using the smooth paper because I like that glossy photo look, but because I know sometimes I do more than three layers, I played it safe and opted for vellum paper, which has more tooth to grip more layers.

Solvent Friendly

In case you want to blend with a medium, Prismacolor has claimed that the pencils work well with solvent. I have used Gamsol and it does work well with these pencils, though I don’t use solvent often.

Wax bloom aside, though, I do enjoy using Prismacolor Premier pencils. They are my go-to wax-based pencils for a long time, and I still use them because they are so creamy to blend.

Here are some of the portraits I did with Prismacolor Premier coloured pencils:

Prismacolor Premier Coloured Pencils Review:

Colour Selection: 5/5

Pigment/Vibrancy: 5/5

Lightfastness: 4.5/5 (based on most lightfast rating on Prismacolor Premier pencils)

Blendability: 5/5

Value: 5/5

Overall Rating: 4.88/5