Caran D'Ache Supracolor I Apple

I am about to admit how far I have been sucked into the black hole of colored pencil collection. It all started with a set of Crayola colored pencils and the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", way back in the 1980s, I thought that was good enough for the coloring I did. But now, I am learning to sketch with color, not just color in outlines. So, my collection has ramped up from Crayolas through student grade colored pencils to artist-grade colored pencils. Just to see if the more pricey pencils are worth the hype (in general, yes).

In search of a bargain, I look on eBay for used or vintage pencil collections. On one of those searches, a lot of Caran D'Ache SupracolorI came up. I was so excited! SupracolorII pencils are smooth and vibrant professional grade watercolour pencils, but I had never seen a set of SupracolorI, which are no longer in production. I read on Tina's blog that they are uncommon. If I had looked more completely, I would have discovered that she did test out a set and found them lacking in pigment compared to the current type. But, too late, in my excitement I hit "buy it now". And not quite as low as the bargain price that I usually set for myself. Oh well, they are pretty.

Front of metal box containing CdA Supracolor I (fine) pencils.
The box hinges on the right.

Here is the box front, for those few colored pencil history geeks out there. This set is clearly more recent than the box front with the Swiss flag that is shown in Tina's blog post about her Supracolor I set. I added a shot of the insert showing that there is no mention of Museum Aquarelles in the water soluble pencil line. CdA Museum pencils were not produced until after 2013. I don't know where that places these pencils in the history, but they were made after the Prismalo Aquarelle line and before Museum line was produced. I noticed that Supracolor was listed with no distinction between I (fine) and II (soft).

Supracolor I pencils, 18 color set.

The set comes with 18 colors and had very light useage on a couple of the colors. I enjoy the funky font used in the pencil labels. It looks so 1970s mod! The pencil barrels are hexagonal, with gold printed labels and white enamel on the ends. The back of the box says that the cores are 2.9mm in diameter and are lightfast and hard.There are color numbers, but no color names so I wrote in the color names in my swatch test that are listed for the for the corresponding numbers of the Supracolor II line.

CdA SupracolorI swatches activated with three
swipes of a waterbrush. Color names were assigned
based on the same number from the Supracolor II line.

Like my 12 pencil sets, there is only one option for yellow. What's up with that? The pencils are hard, as expected in a line labeled as firm, and lay down a nice amount of pigment when dry. But when swiping with a waterbrush, I had to swipe several times just to get the somewhat anemic smear of color off the swatch.

Supracolor I apple using the triad of
070, 240, and 260
(lemon yellow, scarlet, and blue) 

Unsurprisingly, my apple looks a little light, even after layering and activating with water. I have never tried the technique of water activating, then adding more layers of color after the paper dries. These pencils might be a good candidate for testing that method. I moved away from the magenta, cyan, yellow triad with this apple because the only yellow was a cool lemon yellow that doesn't correspond to the warm yellows in my other apples.

You may notice a difference in this apple. As I was sketching apples, I suddenly saw the secondary highlight that is the reflection off the white paper the apple sits on. Wow! I never noticed that before, but after I saw it in one apple I started seeing it in everything! What a geeky thing to happen to my eyes.