Doodles & Drawing With Derwent

My husband Paul is a keen artist, he uses a range of media to create cartoons which are based on our children. Paul is hugely talented in the Arts and can often be found sat sketching, colouring or tweaking images on his laptop.

Paul has sketch books full of ideas which he begins in pencil, he then moves on to using fine line pens and later transfers his work over to his laptop to colour, shade and add further details to.

It’s a fairly long process but he seems to really enjoy bringing the kids to life in comic format. You can take a peek at the full catalogue of Paul’s work over at his website at  www.shorttoons.com

Doodles & Drawing With Derwent

I was recently sent some rather lovely goodies from www.Pencils.co.uk to review and feature on this here blog. Upon receiving the package I thought to myself ‘who better to try to to test out the goods than the artist of the household?

The Derwent Inspire Me Small Book

The first item we found in our package was the Derwent ‘Inspire Me’ small sketch book. The Inspire Me small book is an 80 page book featuring bleedproof marker paper, printed patterned pages (dots, triangles, squares, hexagons) as well as blank pages to inspire budding artists to illustrate, doodle and draw to their heart’s content.

Retailing at £8.99, The Derwent ‘Inspire Me’ drawing books are available in two sizes (20cm or 14cm square). Paul loved this book, it will no doubt soon be filled with further drawings of our children along with ideas for future comics and such like.

Derwent Pencils & Colours

We were also sent three tins of Derwent pencils and colouring pencils, each tin contains twelve high-quality artists pencils/ colouring pencils.

The Derwent Graphic B-9H Pencil Set

The Derwent Graphic B-9H pencil set offers a range of pencils differing in graphite weight, in less technical terms these pencils differ in shade ranging from a fine, crisp 9H pencil to a soft, smudgy 9B pencil.

According to Paul these pencils are simply smashing for working on the finer details, shading and texture when drawing. This particular tin contains twelve pencils which are B, HB, F, H, 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, 6H, 7H, 8H and 9H.

Retailing at £13.60, The Derwent Graphic B-9H tin is an ideal gift for any budding artist, these pencils can create some fantastic effects and are a fantastic starting point for artists of any ability.

The Derwent Artists Blendable Colour Pencils Set

I love a bit of colour especially when it comes to Art work. The Derwent Artists Blendable Colour Pencils are a fantastic tool for layering, blending and adding colour to your work. Paul often adds colour and shading to his work prior to transferring it over to a digital medium.

The Derwent Artists Blendable Colour Pencils set provided the perfect tool for the job as he was able to smudge, blend and experiment with shading far before taking his work to the laptop.

Derwent have a range of 120 colours in this range, this particular set contains twelve pencils including the colours Deep Cadmium, Orange Chrome, Deep Vermilion, Crimson Lake, Imperial Purple, Spectrum Blue, Prussian Blue, Mineral Green, Grass Green, Golden Brown, Copper Beech and Ivory Black.

The Derwent Artists Blendable Colour Pencils set retails at only £19.50 which considering the quality of the product and the results produced I believe to be a very reasonable price.

The Derwent Coloursoft Pencil Set

We were also sent the Derwent Coloursoft Pencil Set to try out, this set also features twelve pencils. The coloursoft range have a soft, almost velvety strip ideal for applying bold colours with speed and ease.

Whilst the full range of Coloursoft pencils offers 72 different colours, this set includes twelve including Deep Cadmium, Bright Orange, Red, Deep Fuchsia, Indigo, Blue, Green, Lime Green, Dark Brown, Dark Terracotta, Black and White.

I actually enjoyed using these colouring pencils myself, they seemed to make colouring ever so slightly easier, requiring less work to create good results.

The ‘Derwent Coloursoft 12 set’ currently retails at £20.50, it is the ideal set for artists and students alike to carry around in their bags to add colour with ease when ‘on the go’.

To Summarise

Paul and I were equally impressed by the products that we were kindly sent to sample and review. Having spent years myself studying Art, I have always viewed Derwent as a respectable and reliable brand which provides quality products and results.

Whilst I realise that in comparison to your average stationary, Derwents prices may seem slightly steep, they aren’t your every day pencils or colouring pencils. Derwent offer something a little bit special, something to be loved, looked after and to be used with care. Paul and I will certainly be sticking to Derwent when it comes to quality products for Artwork.

For more information upon the products featured and reviewed in this post visit www.pencils.co.uk

Disclosure: I was sent the above products for the purpose of this post however all opinions are my own (and my husbands on this occasion).