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Colour Charts

Colour swatches

Swatching your paints, pencils and blocks can be super helpful for a number of reasons:
  • See the true colours - get a real feel for how your materials look on paper
  • Stay consistent - know exactly how each colour will turn out when you use it
  • Save time - pick the right colours without having to test every time
  • Keep track - easily see what colours you already have in your collection
  • Understand your tools - get to know how your mediums behave and perform
  • Get creative - have fun with your swatches; create different shapes and patterns
  • Build up your own collection as a handy reference guide
To get you started, why not download our printable swatching template here.

Fill out the range name and number of colours at the top of the page. Then colour in each box with a new colour.

Lightfastness

We take lightfastness very seriously at Derwent as it is vitally important to professional artists. Derwent have the latest testing technology which measures the lightfast levels of every pencil. The pigments used in Derwent products are tested for lightfastness and graded from 1-8 (8 being considered extremely lightfast). We use the Blue Wool Scale, which is a testing standard common with artists' materials manufacturers.

Blue wool ref 1 will fade very quickly, whereas blue wool ref 8 is considered extremely lightfast. Any result above Blue Wool 6 (ASTM II) is considered to be VERY GOOD and will not fade for over 100 years in gallery conditions. 

Blue Wool Scale         Rating

3, 4                               Fair, moderate

5, 6                               Good, very good

7,8                                Excellent

We constantly monitor, develop and retest our pencil range to improve on our lightfast ratings. 

Pencils

Artists pencils

See Colour Chart

Charcoal Pencils

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Chromaflow Pencils

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Coloursoft Pencils

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Drawing Pencils

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Graphic Pencils

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Graphitint Pencils

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Inktense Pencils

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Lightfast Pencils

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Metallic Pencils

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Onyx Pencils

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Pastel Pencils

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Procolour Pencils

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Sketching Pencils

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Studio Pencils

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Tinted Charcoal Pencils

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Watercolour Pencils

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Watersoluble Graphitone

See Colour Chart

Watersoluble Sketching

See Colour Chart

Blocks and XL Blocks

Compressed Charcoal

See Colour Chart

Inktense Blocks

See Colour Chart

Natural Graphite

See Colour Chart

Charcoal XL Blocks

See Colour Chart

Graphite XL Blocks

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Graphitint XL Blocks

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Tinted Charcoal XL Blocks

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Inktense XL Blocks

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Pens

Line Maker

See Colour Chart

Paint Pen

See Colour Chart

Paints

Watercolour Paint Set

See Colour Chart

Inktense Paint Sets

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Pastel Shades Paint Set

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Metallic Paint Set

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Graphitint Paint Set

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Tinted Charcoal Paint Set

See Colour Chart

Shade and Tone Mixed Media Set

See Colour Chart

Line and Wash Paint Set

See Colour Chart