This blog post is about experimenting with a brand called Arteza, you may have heard of them before or even tried them out yourself! I was kindly sent two of Arteza's products to test and review. Their premium sketch pads and tin of 72 colour pencils. I was very excited to see what they were like! :) It's always good to expand on new products and try new things!! I will have links below on where to purchase them on Amazon if you'd like to try them out yourself.
PAPER REVIEW
The sketchbooks come in a set of two, so you get 160 pages altogether! The size of them are A4 so this is a nice size to work with. They are spiral-bound so easy to tear the pages and work on a desk or drawing board. The paper quality for me was a bit too thin (80lb) but saying that it can hold around 4 to 5 layers of pencil. Building up the colours from light to dark you can achieve this. The paper is smooth, that's what I normally work with for my commission work and wildlife portraits, but I normally work with 140lb and 300lb paper which is quite a lot thicker, and can hold many more layers of pencil.
I decided to draw a kingfisher when experimenting with their products, and sketching out the bird onto the paper with graphite worked brilliantly. Also rubbing out the pencil marks worked well too. Not indenting the paper (but you must remember to lightly sketch out to avoid this!) The paper is Acid-free so perfect to stop your drawings from fading over time!
COLOUR PENCIL REVIEW The overall look of the pencils are fantastic, the tin looks very professional and inside the tin are many beautiful, vibrant colours. The pencils are sat in 3 sets of 24 pencils. I rearranged them in their tin so all the similar colours would be next to each other. They are sat on plastic trays, I found it quite difficult getting them out of the tin, this is because the plastic is quite thin and it felt as if they were going to all come out.
The pencils are individually named and there is a good variety of colours, but personally I'd have like to have seen more shades of lighter blues and a better range of grey pencils. However, overall a good mixture - plenty of greens, browns, pinks and reds. The white works well as a highlighter and also layers over really well.
The pencils sharpen amazingly and I found little to no breakage when doing so. Even when pressing quite firm with the pencils, I didn't have any problem with them breaking.
I was a bit nervous of how my kingfisher would turn out, but I was very impressed with the results!! I didn't expect the quality of their pencils to be this nice, rich and creamy! They popped so much off the paper. Below you can see my progress steps of the kingfisher. My favourite colours to use were the oranges and blues.
Overall, I was very impressed with the products by Arteza. I would recommend them to people who are starting out on coloured pencil artworks and to people who are more advanced! I didn't expect them to be as good as they are!! I'll definitely be using these products again! :)
You can purchase yours by clicking on the links below! Arteza 80 sheets Drawing Pad x2 Arteza 72 Colour pencils
