KOH-I-NOOR Woodless Coloured Pencils Review
Have you ever envisioned a set of coloured pencils that weren’t encased in wood? Well, KOH-I-NOOR made that dream come to life with their woodless progresso coloured pencil line. While the concept of a pencil that’s all pigment with no extras like a wood casing seems like a great idea, does it hold up to the standards of traditional wood-cased pencils? I was eager to find out.
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed in this blog post are my own and I have not been paid to give a favourable review. I, like many of you, rely on the reviews and feedback of people I respect and trust and there is no value to me to provide a review that is misleading or coerced. Please do however feel free to try this product for yourself and form your own opinions, as every artist will have slightly different preferences.
PRODUCT FEATURES
Color Range: 26 Vibrant Colors
Excellent Laydown Properties
Outlasts Wood-Cased Pencils
Sharpens With a Standard Pencil Sharpener
Lacquer-coated, High Density, Pure Colour
Comfortable Round Shape
PACKAGING
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
These no-fluff pencils come in a standard thin cardboard sleeve over a hard plastic inner tray. There are no extras here just a simple utilitarian approach to product and package.
The pencils themselves are all core with a lacquer casing so that the colour doesn’t rub off on your hands while you’re using them. It also provides a bit of protection for the core that a wood casing would normally provide.
Despite being a core-only pencil, I find that it feels pretty strong and it doesn’t feel like it would crumble if you gripped it too hard or dropped it by accident.
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
Colour accuracy is ok for some of the pencils, but inaccurate on others. For some of the colours the lacquered body tends to be lighter than the pigment on paper, but the compressed core appears slightly darker.
Once again, this is why I feel so strongly about filling out colour charts for your pencil sets to get optimal accuracy.
Related: Why I Create Colour Charts
The lacquered finish has a barcode, the name of the pencil line, the brand name, country they are manufactured in, and colour name stamped on it. This doesn't make for an aesthetically pleasing look, but again, there's no fluff with these pencils.
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
SHARPENING & BREAKAGE
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
A perk of this type of pencil is that you don’t need to use a special sharpener for it. Since there is no wood casing to be removed to reveal more of the core, you may even find you need to sharpen less than you normally would. That said, if you want a sharp point you would still need to sharpen it, but it still feels like less waste when you do.
In my sharpening tests, I was able to get a decent point on the pencils and I didn’t have any concerns about breakage. With that said, I would still take care not to drop the set if you can avoid it. This will minimize the chance of compromising the integrity of the core’s overall structure.
LIGHTFAST RATINGS
While KOH-I-NOOR does supply detailed colour charts, and even MSDS sheets for their products on their website, it doesn’t have a legend that explains those lightfast ratings on the same sheet. The packaging however, does say that it conforms to the ASTM D 4236 standard. The majority of the pencils in their 24 colour line rate quite highly according to the company apart from the usual offenders like the pink and purple hues.
PERFORMANCE
INITIAL FEEL
I was impressed with the initial feel of these pencils. I expected them to have an overly waxy feel but they almost felt like the harder lead of polychromos. The initial colour laydown was pretty good on the hot press watercolour paper I used for this test drawing, but needed many layers to fully cover the white.
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
DETAILS & BLENDING
Blending was nice with these pencils but not quite as buttery as say a Prismacolor or Lyra pencil by comparison. I suspect, that when used on a smooth paper like a bristol, however, that these pencils would perform quite nicely. Details were easily achieved when sharpened to a point.
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
ADVANCED BLENDING
I was able to achieve quite a few layers with these pencils and thought they blended quite nicely into one another, however, a burnishing technique was required in some areas to get a more advanced blend.
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
FINAL RESULT
Overall I think these pencils performed better than I expected. I think they would make a great travel sketch pencil because even when sharpening you would have a pencil that lasts much longer compared to a traditional one. In hindsight, I think this test drawing would have been better executed on a smooth paper. That said, I like to use hot press paper as a personal litmus test for the qualities that I prefer in a coloured pencil, so it was still a valuable result.
Image © Barb Sotiropoulos
PROS & CONS OVERVIEW
PROS:
strong core
less waste than traditional coloured pencils
great colour vibrancy and richness of colour
great travel pencil
CONS:
small colour range
pencil design is not overly considered (personal preference)
open stock availability may vary by location
fugitive colours are rated extremely low
Learn more about this product: https://www.kohinoorusa.com/woodlesscolor
