Oil based colored pencils are not as common as wax based colored pencils, but they are growing in popularity. One of the more budget friendly brands is the Lyra Rembrandt colored pencils. How do they measure up to the most popular brand of oil based colored pencils of Polychromos? Let us see. For those who want to try out these pencils for themselves, I have included my Amazon and Blick Art Materials affiliate links down below.
I purchased the The 72 set for around $43 on Amazon. The price has since increased quite a bit. These colored pencils come in sets of 12, 24, 36, and 72. They are also available open stock on Blick Art Materials for $2.31.
The colors in this set are listed on the back. The lightfastness of each color is listed on the back and most of these colors have very good lightfastness.
The color name and number are also written on the pencils.
Cutie Boots picked his favorite color. (Or he just likes the size of these pencils to play with.)
There are two tiers of pencils in this 72 set. The first tier has yellows, reds, blues, and purples. There is also a colorless blender.
The second tier has greens, browns, greys, black, and another colorless blender. I am not sure why there was a really short pencil in this group. Maybe it got over sharpened by accident.
Doodlin' Time!
I noticed that there were two paris blue pencils in my set. I think the Prussian Blue pencil was missing from my set. The pencils are nicely pigmented and the colors are bright. They are oil based and fairly smooth. I don't think they are quite as smooth or soft as Schpirerr Farben or Polychromos, but they are close.
'Sunflower'
by Ellie Taylor
I used yellows, browns, and greens to paint the sunflower. The yellows are very bright and vivid. I was able to use about 6 or 7 layers and get a bright yellow. The blender pencil also helped increase the vividness when I used it on the final layer.
These pencils are a nice budget set for hobbyists or beginning professionals. I do think there is a bit of quality control issues such as missing pencils or too much sharpening. However, these are available for a budget friendly price and are nice quality with good lightfastness.