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Today I'll let you into my studio to look at how I organize my colored pencils.
I will warn you that this is one area where I'm a little... fussy. If you have an aversion to things that are too organized or orderly or color coordinated, BEWARE!
You may want to turn back now.

First up we have the Polychromos, which are my favorites and what I use the most, by far. By FAR. (I gave you the link to the manufacturer's site, but they don't have the best price, don't buy them from there! ~ scroll to the bottom of this post for cheaper places.)
I have 3 tins of them ~ 2 are the 120 set, 1 is the 72 set.

What I did was take out all the pencils in all 3 sets and reorganize them according to color.


They're not organized by number. Its just visual for my own amusement.
I open them out like this, but with some overlap, on my drawing table when I'm working.



There are gaps in the tins here, especially the browns, since I'm using some of those right now on my chocolate pieces, and have them somewhere else, handy (I'll show you farther down).



In addition to the ones in tins I have boxes full of 'extras', colors I use a lot of or need for specific pieces. I have lots and lots of black, white and ivory, and now a lot of browns, plus other colors that I've needed extras of for some past project. I have all these in a drawer in my art supply cupboard, and have them labelled like this so I know what's in the box.



There are more than this. Its obscene how many I have. If you ever need a color and the art supply stores say they're out of stock, its probably my fault.
I don't have any of the discontinued Soft Black though. I know who has them all but I'm not saying.

~~~~~~~~~

Next up are my Prismacolors.
I found these plastic storage boxes at the art supply store ages ago and they work pretty well. You can adjust the little 'spacers' however you like; so I made a long section for newer pencils and a short section for stubbier bits.

I divided them all up, sort of, by 'reds' or warm colors, and 'blues' or cooler colors. (Although I just noticed a couple of greens have jumped their way over into the warm bin.)



This is by no means a scientific sorting. Its just sort of 'good enough', and when I need a certain color I can find it OK.
I don't use Prismas very much any more. I bought these way back, and some of them are ancient.



I also have some very interesting odd pencils which I'm sure are collector's items!
There's a Whitman, a Venus, and a "Koh-I-Noor" Polycolor.
And check out that little 2-headed striped number. I think I've had that since about the 4th grade. I used to have a whole set, not sure what happened to the rest of them. I never use that pencil; I just have it as a link to the past. I can't bear to throw it out.



I have one other plastic bin for just regular graphite pencils.



And here's my handy-dandy Tool Turn-about for all the pencils that are either in use on a project, or ones that I haven't "filed" yet. This thing is great, because it keeps the pencils in one spot and keeps them from rolling off the table.



I also have tins of: Coloursoft, Inktense, Graphitints, and watercolor pencils. I just keep them in their original tins, nothing fancy.

I'm really disciplined about keeping these babies organized. I re-file them all after each project. The rest of my studio may be a disaster, but my pencils are always in pretty good shape.
I think if there was a fire (god forbid), after my cats I'd save my pencils.

Here are the 3 main places online I use to order pencils and other supplies:
Dick Blick
Daniel Smith
Jerry's Artarama
Go to each site and sign up to get emailed specials and sales sent to you. You can save a bundle that way!
(As I'm writing this, Polychromo prices vary wildly: Jerry's has them for $1.69, Daniel Smith for $1.39 and Dick Blick for $.95! If you buy them from the manufacturer's site they're $2.69 each!!!! Yikes. But the prices fluctuate, and sometimes the "tin" price will be cheaper at a place that has the open stock for more. So be sure to check around when you're shopping. And there are more places than this, just google "art supplies".)

That's all for today~

2.5 x 3.5
Derwent Coloursoft on board
ebay

I like this! This is Coloursoft's "brown black" color. Its almost as soft as the Derwent Drawing pencil, but noooooot quiiiiite. Close though.
They're still not Polychromos, but they're pretty good.
And I like this color. I want to do a couple more then do a final "side by side" thing to compare.

I sure wish I had my CPSA lightfast book so I'd know which ones were lightfast. If anyone who does know wants to tell me, I'm all ears (thanks to Katherine I already know the Poly black is good, which is a relief). I have a feeling most or all of these muted colors will be OK. Notice though I'm not testing Graphitints because somewhere I heard they were fugitive. Again, if anyone knows for sure and feels like sharing...

To see all the Yarn pieces in this series side-by-side, please go here. Or visit my ebay store to see which are available for sale.
All images and content herein are © Paula Pertile and may not be used or reproduced without permission.

2.5 x 3.5
Coloursofts and Polychromos on board
on ebay

I know I said I was going to do black and whites. And I am! I just had to do this first.

Yesterday was such a contrast to the day before, with the terrible storm and wind and rain and all. The sky was blue, and there were these amazing gigantic fluffy clouds all over. They were still kind of ominous, with grey underbellies, but they also had the most beautiful pinks and lavender colors in them. I just had to do a little piece about them. Or try, anyway.

I don't do as well with pastelly colors for some reason. It probably looks OK to you, but I fussed with it a lot. I'm not a pastel person. I like grey and taupe and black and cream and olive and plum and...well, you get the idea. Even as a kid. (Although I was forced to have a pink bedroom. Well, at least until I got up the nerve to ask my parents to let me paint one wall blue-violet (the rest was white) which they thought was the height of teenage rebellion, and which they also thought gave them lots of "cool" points for allowing me to do. Enough said.)

Anyway, this is my little homage to the "post-storm sky".
And I find that the Polychromos work well with just about every other type of pencil. I like to start with the Coloursofts or Graphitints and then do some Polychromo on top.

To see all the Yarn pieces in this series side-by-side, please go here. Or visit my ebay store to see which are available for sale.
All images and content herein are © Paula Pertile and may not be used or reproduced without permission.

2.5 x 3.5
Graphitints and Polychromos on illustration board
ebay auction

There's a stand of Italian Cypress tress in the yard behind me. All Winter I've been watching them bend and sway in the wind. Its kind of mesmerizing some days, others its scary. So anyways, I finally decided to use them as inspiration for a yarn piece.

I started with Graphitints then filled in more with Polychromos. I like using the two together.

This last week I didn't get much done. Well, I did, but it was nothing I could blog about. And I didn't have time to do any yarn. Or anything else for myself. I was cranky!

Next up is a series of tests about "black and white", or more specifically, "monochromatic" pieces, done with different greys, sepias, blacks etc. I'm doing a piece that will be in black and white, but want to warm it up some. I'm not sure I want to use sepia. I know the Polychromo "soft blacks" are impossible to find now, so that's out. I love my usual Polychromo regular black (like the yarn in the last post), but its a very cold black. I just want to explore some options. So hopefully in the next couple of days I'll have something to show.
Stay tuned!

To see all the Yarn pieces in this series side-by-side, please go here. Or visit my ebay store to see which are available for sale.
All images and content herein are © Paula Pertile and may not be used or reproduced without permission.

Yikes! We’d meant to post this special edition of Book Bites for Kids earlier in the week, but we had some technical difficulties.

NWFCC contributing editor and children’s author Maurene J. Hinds

Listen as children’s writer, and contributing editor here at the NWFCC, Maurene J. Hinds talks with Book Bites for Kids host, Suzanne Lieurance, about her newest nonfiction book, Fighting the AIDS and HIV Epidemic.

Maurene also offers tips for how other children’s writers can get book contracts with children’s educational publishers.