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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~

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