When I was 18 my family couldn’t afford to buy me expensive art supplies but they would get me Stuff here n there. My dad works at waste management, and he used to get to look threw the trash coming from different stores, one day he came across the set of 79 Prismacolor pencils, he was so excited to bring them home to my mom and I, some were broken but they were able to fix them up. After using crayola and roseart pencils I was so mad that I had never experienced real art supplies.

I am grateful for folks taking their valuable time to watch! Thank you!

Another difference between the two is the lightfastness - the premier pencils are fade resistant, while the scholar ones are not. For some reason that tends to bump the price of art materials up.

Most of the time, student vs artist quality is more about lightfastness, which was not discussed in this video. That said, I long ago stopped using “Newsprint” because every now and then, I’d fall in love with something I did on newsprint. I’ve held onto those newsprints a very long time. They are not doing well, and they are stored in archival boxes and getting good conservation treatment. So.. there is no point in comparing artist vs student without taking lightfastness into consideration.

I've had lots of experience with both Scholar and Premier. The main difference i see is layering. i do realistic photograph like pictures with a harsh burnishing technique. Premier is great for this. Scholar on the other hand does NOT like to layer well and tends to have an uneven pigment that causes scratches on my paper that cant be erased. The man in this video didn't demonstrate this technique at all, so of course he didn't see that much of a difference in the two. OVERALL if you want a strong even coverage using lots of pressure to create photo realistic artwork, Premier is DEFINITELY the a worthy investment, b/c you can't used the same technique with any other pencil without ripping the paper (trust me I've tried). BUT if you just want to do the classic pencil techniques using light strokes that show the texture of the paper (like the man in this video), get scholar b/c there's really no noticeable difference. hope this helped someone!

I teach art, and recently had a HUGE box of very old, very dirty art supplies donated from a basement. To my amazement and excitement, when I got everything cleaned and sorted, I had a large number of Venus Spectracolor AND Berol Prismacolor. So glad to see you included them, they still work great even after all this time!

Seems to me this is the same dilemma faced by musicians. Do you buy a guitar for around $500 or a guitar around $2500? The $500 guitar sounds great, but the $2500 guitar sounds a little better. But does it sound so much better than it's worth paying 5x more? And who notices anyway? Whether it's art materials or guitars, it's the artist who notices the difference, not the audience. Both your fish drawings looked fantastic to me, but if I had to choose, I'd go for the student quality one - but then who am I to judge?

Wow, man! I wish I had access to an art room like that at my high school. I hope your honors students know how fortunate they are. And getting a chance to learn under a practicing pro can't be understated either. Good for them. As for the pencils. Great review! Only other reason I can think of to choose the Premiere pencils would be lightfastness, a fine artist preference to be sure but an important one for any art that might hang.

Prismacolor premier are pretty cheap on amazon.15 bucks for the 48 set.

Great video! Loved the fancy graphics too, very well done. I have prismacolor from the early to mid 1980s because my art teacher had my mother get them for my lessons and they were Berol, they were great pencils, I still have some stubs from them! I have stanfords form the late 1990s that I also loved. I was dismayed at all of the bad reviews they had recently but had been tempted by the low price for the prismacolor premier on Amazon so I ordered a small set to compare between my moldie oldies and the new ones and it seems that they have corrected whatever growing pains they had when they moved their factories from USA to Mexico and all seems to be right as rain with them. I was so pleased that I ordered the 250 set on amazon when the price dropped to $59 and I also grabbed a couple 36 sets for $10 each at AC Moore when they had a special to have on hand for gifts. I wish I grabbed more LOL! That is a lovely gift with a sketch book or coloring book I think. It makes sense that the Scholar is a good pencil. It is good to make your student grade good so when a child grows up they stick with the trusted brand. For instance Sennelier's La Petite Aquarelle is fabulous and I can hardly tell the difference between the artist and student line. If the student line was relable you would trust the artist line and keep people brand loyal. Also I think the harder way in the Scholar will keep the pencils from breaking as easily especially with kids who are more likely to drop the pencils and shared supplies take more abuse that personally purchased and owned supplies. I am really glad you liked these, I feel like they have gotten a bad rap. Tell your students that Amazon usually beats all other prices for the Prismacolor premier pencils. Great review!

Anybody else hear "adorable metal tin" when he actually said "a durable metal tin"?

From my experience with prismacolor is I cant sharpen them to save my life. The slightest bit of sharpening and they break, A brand new pencil is about an 2 inches long before I can actually use it.

I wish I had that hand study project when I was in AP art in high school! So fun! I had to buy the metal tin ones when in school.

This is SUCH an interesting comparison! Seriously. I’m again loving those side-by-side strips that you cleaned up because they’re unbearably useful. It was also really informative and cool seeing the two fish in greyscale. Wow Mark, these reviews are so cool! And I love the time you put into the explanation of the history, and that you happen to have predecessors to compare these with. As for me and my experience, I’ve pretty much only used random prismacolors and random crayola and I know I prefer the smoothness of the prismacolor pencils (because after being an elementary school teacher for a year and pretty much exclusively using crayola I had no idea how good I’d had it with prismacolor until Eve sent me a few in our box swap videos). I don’t think I’m into colored pencils enough to spend $60 on a set like that, but I did personally buy a set for $24 because it had like 24 pencils and I’m also a hoarder of metal tins. I think if colored pencils are one of your main mediums, just like with watercolor, it’s worth it to put in for the good stuff. I have plenty of student grade paints that perform well, but every time I go from using my Student paints back to my pro paints I’m reminded of how much better the pro paints move and how much more vibrant and lovely the pigment load is. Those things end up being important to me because how much pleasure vs. frustration a medium gives me to use makes all the difference in the final product. I think you can tell when an artist is just having fun making a piece, and the feel of the medium itself, even if it’s only slightly superior, adds up to help deliver joy. Anyway, seriously, I’m loving your comparisons. Please don’t stop making these investigations because they’re way cool.

I got the 72 pack of premier pencils on amazon for $20, supplies is so much more expensive in stores

One thing you didn't address was light-testing for colorfastness. The pro-grade pencils are almost always tested for colorfastness, which of course, adds a few pennies to the cost of the pencil. Crayola, despite actually being used by a few fine artists, has been happy enough with their "bread and butter" sales to schoolkids that they've never bothered to test their products for colorfastness.

I wish I would have had you as a high school teacher! It would have saved me hundreds of hours of trial and error learning! Great videos

I used Crayolas but last year I started using Prismacolors. But then I used them together and they are great. Crayola is good for smooth solid areas like maybe glass but Prismacolors take a longer time to get smooth. They each have their own specializations, but really both can be used for anything.

Great video Mark! 😁 Awesome side by side comparison. I have been using prismacolor for years & I still love them. On black Friday I got the 150 set for $49 on amazon. Even though I still had my 120 from back in 2006, for that price I had to grab them. I think I easily paid $100 for my first 72 set back then. I do hope you didn't pay $60 for your 48 set. Last I looked you could get the 72 set for around $24 on Amazon. I picked that set up at Xmas for my daughter in law. 😃 I hope you are having a blast teaching & doing well my friend. 🤗

The 150 package for the premieres are not a tin but a card board box. I would say the scholar pencils dont break as easily as the premiere making them a better choice to travel with. Also I don't feel as guilty using the scholors in coloring books to practice. The premeire do come up to 150 colors while the scholors are only 60 pencils. I'm not 100% and correct me if I am wrong the scholors cannot be bought in open stock while the premeires can be. The premeires have gotten so low in price point they are almost as cheap as the scholors but I like to tos my pencils in a bag so I prefer a pencil that is less likely to break. I own both sets full sets btw. Last point who keeps pencils in their original box anyway lol

Hobby Lobby just got rid of their Prismacolor pencils and were replaced by Master's Touch, a Hobby Lobby brand. Could you do a comparison on those two. I work there and customers have asked.

Wow! I loved the way you showed the differences in pencils. I have not used the highest grade pencil yet and after seeing this I'm not sure I would go out and spend the extra money. Thank you.

The 68 dislikes are prisma color employees

Another huge point (which many have already mentioned) is Premier also comes in a set of 150 pencils (box, not tin), whereas Scholar does not. Plus, shopping around online helps too. I bought my 150 pc. Premier set years ago via Amazon for *way* less than what Blick's or Michael's sells them for. However there are risks going through Amazon, as some reviewers have received duplicate trays, or the box got jumbled around during shipping and the lead cores ended up breaking (which by the way, super glue works perfect for gluing a broken tip back into the pencil - You are welcome for that tip). The *only* Prismacolor thing I bought "in store" was my 200 pc. Prismacolor Duel Tip Brush Marker set. Even then I ran into complications, as I *always* make a color swatch of all the colors, and the very first color put down, the brush tip crumbled it was so dried out - Luckily Blick's was nice enough to replace those that were dried out for no expense (except for the $20 in gas it cost me to travel back out to the cities, lol) ... Since I was 12 yrs old, I've always, always wanted a set of Prismacolor Colored Pencils, and as an artist I strive to have a complete set of whatever it is (aka go big or go home, lol). I feel that working with the Premier set has helped my work a lot, as they do blend very well, that doesn't go without saying, that you should know what your're doing before going out and just blowing a ton of money on some pencils. I didn't get these pencils until I was 31 yrs old and that was more because my budget as a starving artist never allowed me to be able to attain them. Anyways, that's my two penny's on the situation. As for Prismacolor Markers vs. Copics ... I also choose Prismacolor, Copics are messy, they lay *way* too much pigment down (are extremely wet) from my experience with them, they also don't blend as well as expected. Another product I'd recommend are Kuretake ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Water-based markers (Which I use for water coloring) - Which can be found on Amazon as well for a reasonable price. P.S: I've always wanted to be an Art Teacher! ^_^

Interesting comparison! It only made me miss the older pencils more though... The Berol, Canadiana and Laurentien pencils that used to be everywhere around here! I still have a few that were hand-me-downs but yeah. There's a lot of nostalgia into the mix! I think the Scholar fish came out smoother than the Premier one, as if the harder leads were easier to control, perhaps?

This answered the many questions I have had about the Prismacolor pencils. I like the informative approach that you took to explain why and how. (Wish I had had you as an art teacher in school!). I am definitely going to share this with fellow color pencil pushers!

Hi there. I am what is known as a heavy-handed colorist. I color for the sheer pleasure of it. I gotta tell you, I had a lovely easel box of what was called, "Berol Verithin's", back in the early '70s. (No, I'm not old!). I have 1 or 2 of them still. I also had an inexpensive set of water based markers. My parents, my mom mostly, being creative people, wanted to nurture my love for coloring when I was 10 or 11. I still have some of the books I used back then. Boy have coloring books changed! Yes. I'm in heaven. I bought a set of 24 Prismacolors, and sure, the pigments are intense, but I must be the queen of smear. I may try them at some point, but I think that I will stick to oil based pencils. That said, I have many of the "cheap", student or children's brands of colored pencils. So, I participated in an all-book coloring challenge, and made the decision to use a different set of pencils for each page. The Prismacolors page is VERY vibrant. But, I like a few of the sets. CraZart, Leisure Art, Crayola, Crayola Twistables, Prang, Loew-Cornell, Staedtler, Marco Raffine', Timeless Creations (by CraZart), iArtker, Funlavie, Lelix, Feela, Wanshui, Positive Art, Prismacolors, AND, Whirling watercolor (similar to Crayola Twistables), Art Magic Watercolors. Like I said, a few sets. Yes, some of these sets are hard, some smooth, and a couple soft. To make it fair-ish, I colored every page using the same simple technique, and placing colors in similar design elements. My simple, silly technique, was go in hard, to get as much pigment on the page, and burnish well. I discovered that I don't mind the slightly harder leads. The Loew-Cornell set I have is at least 15 years old, and the worst to use. I actually got discouraged for the first time. It is SO hard. Nope! I can honestly say, I hate them. (too strong?) I think you should "play" with the Crayola Twistables. Softer than tradional Crayola pencils. Once they are burnished, they are unchangeable. But, the pigments are fantastic. I love their reds! That is a great page. Anyway, there are some good pencils that aren't so hard. You can get beautiful results, maybe not Prismacolor results, but definitely good choices. (I did the same thing with the 2 watercolor pencil sets, no water, and got 2 of the prettiest pages.) Love to see how you would use any of the sets I mentioned. Thanx, Mindy

I am not an artist and have only ever really used cheap colored pencils. Therefore, I never liked using colored pencils. However, for Christmas this past year, my MIL gave me a package of Prisma Color Premier and I fell in LOVE!!!😍😍😍 I never knew pencils could be that good! I was coloring everything I could even offering to color some of my son's workbook pages for him!!! Great video, now at least I understand why I like them so much! For the most part, I am more into the fabric and cosmetic art forms personally. I can't draw a stick finger to save my like, but can crochet you a beautiful snuggly afgan or trendy fingerless gloves! 😀

My experience has been much like yours, but I appreciated your structured testing and commentary. Have Premiers (and FCs) for my art & keep the Scholars for the grandkids.

Gosh, I wish I had real artprojects in high school ‘in my time’ about 25 yrs ago. The only thing I can reminder was to draw the other half of a image. I choose a image from Anne Geddes - baby. I was really proud of it! My teacher didn’t believe I drew it myself… 🤦‍♀️😭 He said I wasn’t creative. That made me so insecure and I never drew again…until two years ago. Now I draw whole portraits and…I am a teacher (not in art) and I never (!) made of will make a comment about the art from a student. When a student shows you his/her artwork (drawing, painting, singing, dancing or acting) the student shows you his vulnerability and trusts you with his personal art. Instead of making a (stupid) comment I will ask ‘What’s the story behind it?’ I’ve had the most beautiful and personal conversations with kids from the age 12-18 yrs old. 💛 and because of a simple question I got a good relationship with them. So, dear people, if you are thinking of becoming a teacher (or you already are)…Just ask about the story behind it and feel proud that the child has that kind of trust in you when he/she shows you Art. PS. I would’ve loved to have really good pencils back then. All we had was three graphite pencils and an eraser 🥲

Having both of those pencils, I’m no expert, but I can tell the difference in how the pencils feel.

Excellent review. This was very helpful to me. I bought the Scholar pencils because they were significantly cheaper and I'm new to Adult coloring. I'm happy to hear that the Scholars are considered to be a good choice for any artist. I've had success with them.

Hmm interesting!! My color pencils are $2, and my students use Crayola (they're in elementary school haha). Other than that, I don't know very much about color pencils at all LOL!

I would love to see a similar comparison using Scholar and Premiere on Artist quality paper, with Artist level watercolors and brushes. This was amazing! Loved it!

Wow! I wish you was my art teacher way back when I was in high school. The sbs art teachers were always so much better at teaching art. I have tried most of these color pencils and for my money and my use of the media, I have chosen Crayola. Prismacolors do lay down colors easy but I can't justify the cost. There is a brand that is really better than Crayola and just about as good as Prisma but the cost per pencil is lower than Prang. Their name is Raffine. The down side has nothing to do with the quality but because they come from China, waiting for delivery is very long. Thank you for your video Mark. I enjoy watching and learning from you. Hugs!

As both a newbie to watercolor and a parent who’s trying to support and interact with my child who adores and is so good at various art mediums I truly appreciate and enjoyed this video. It’s filled with so much info for history and things so applicable to my experiences now.

For my own personal use, I use the premier--soft,easy to blend,dont break easily, intense color as you showed. But for students the scholar pencils are a really nice substitute. They do break easily though and it seems that if the pencil falls on the floor, the entire stick of color inside the wood will break in several places. Then when the students sharpen the pencil, pieces inside keep breaking off. This makes it difficult to sharpen and get a fine point. The plastic blister pack, designed to stand as a triangular holder IS WORTHLESS. Its so flimsy and teenagers attempting to stand it as it displays pencils, become frustrated as it spills the pencils no matter how delicately it is handled. I dont use Crayola --too hard and students have difficulty blending them. Blick student grade are close in quality to the Scholar but still a bit hard and the color intensity isnt there. Bought a small pack of the premiere just so students could understand the difference but the price is too inhibitive. Students really respond to the softness of the scholar pencils and are very happy with their quality.

I have had to stop using the Premier line due to extensive breakage problems. The quality of the manufacturing of the pencils has changed over the past 5-10 years. While the Premier definitely has the best pigmentation, if the pencil is gone in 10 strokes why bother? Check the bottom of the pencil. If the wood casing is merged into the pigment, don't buy the pencil. It will break easily. I have switched to Polychromos and Luminance. I don't care how expensive they are because if I don't use them, I need to give up doing colored pencil drawings.

I've been using my post-NAFTA Prismacolors lately, and the experience has both reminded reminded me of why I used to love Prismas and why I came to hate them. I received my birthday presents today, and I broke one of my Prismas in the Official Prismacolor Sharpener I unboxed today. I also noted how much better my $1.65 sharpener performed with my new Tombow Irojiten as opposed to the Prisma. The quality of the wood casing *matters*. Just sayin'. Anyway, since I can't stand to throw my remaining Prismacolors away, but I couldn't square it with my conscience to give them away to an unsuspecting innocent, I'm going to use them up on coloring books with low-quality paper before going back to my Polychromos. Meanwhile, I'm going to silently mourn the wonder that was the Prismacolor Premium Colored Pencil before they closed down their proprietary factory in the U. S. and out-contracted their manufacture to the lowest bidders.

You can really appreciate that difference in pigment and soft lead when you're working with them all day, your hands don't get tired or cramp up so easily, especially if you're spending a week on a piece. Thanks for doing the comparisons and making this video, it definitely answered the question.

I think the scholar line is brighter while the premier are darker. Sort of like a different lighting level. There is enough differences in the two fish to make visual comparison more subjective than should be. The grey scale shows all sorts of differences that make a comparison not really valid.

I don't own a ton of art supplies, but I do have the Prismacolor Scholar 60 set and the Prismacolor Premier 72 set...the Scholar pencils really are quite good, and I use them as much as my Premier set.

Loved this Mark, really interesting to hear the differences and the colour tests you did made it so clear to see. Great to see your classroom too! Have you used derwent pencils? They are pretty popular over this side.

That explains why the prismacolors I fell in love with in the 90's seem to work different from the ones I have now. My set I had back then was over $1700, and were wonderful....they don't seem to work the same now

Nice video! I was able to get the Prismacolor 72 set on sale for around 30 bucks, otherwise I would have probably bought the Scholar pencils.

Great comparison and review! You know, I have a pack of these and I never used them because I thought they were shit. But now, I will certainly break them out and have a go. Thanks!

I'd be curious to see other blending techniques and layering different colors with each other, I think that's where the differences are likely to get much more pronounced. However, I think one big drawback on the Scholars is availability in open stock and the other big drawback is color choices, 150 vs 58 is quite a difference.

Thank you so much for your “real world” comparison, if you will. You compared them with Crayola, the mainstream favorite especially in schools, and you showed how they hold up in use with different mediums and in combination with other products. The info on the morphing of the Prismacolor pencil was great, too. Especially for a colored pencil newb like me, this comparison was fantastic - the price difference going from scholar to premier is astronomical and I really appreciate seeing the difference in a side by side comparison. I still want to experience the difference in the feel of the softer pencil and how that affects blending, but I feel more at peace keeping my scholars and investing a lot of time with them rather than feeling that time is “wasted” somehow.

I personally like the Caran d'ache Luminance 6901 better than the Faber Castell Polychromos. They are more expensive (40 for $90) but are totally worth it!

Your detailed analysis was well researched, quite thorough, and well presented enough for anyone to understand. Nice voice over, too. It turned out much more interesting than I even expected. Can't imagine why you got any dislikes. I have almost always bought my Prismacolors one pencil at a time. There are some colors I almost never use, like black and white, while others are always running out, like mulberry, crimson, magenta and grass green. That is why buying them in a set is not always the best choice, at least not for me. The price for individual pencils varies from one color to another, so if you can get by with the cheaper colors, why get a whole set? Prices have gone up, of course. Twenty years ago, I was buying some of them for as little as 60 cents each, while others were a dollar or more. Last time I looked at them (a couple of years ago), there were no pencils under a dollar, while some were three dollars or more, if I remember correctly. That was in the local college bookstore. The only real downside is that they break so easily and often shatter all the way through, destroying the entire pencil in one swell foop! I try to only use them in carpeted areas because I really like the softer leads. Wait. I take that back. Now that I have looked at my newest pencils, I see another terrible flaw. The name of the color is too far up from the end of the pencil. It would get sharpened off long before the pencil stub gets too small to use! Aarrgh! That is so annoying!!!

I just bought a 72 set of prisma premiers for 24.95. Thats not a bad price point at all. Some places over charge about 50-75! Ridiculous! But you need to look. Amazon has them.. and blicks (great prices too) and groupon has them for about 25.00 too. It was worth 25.00 for me to get the 72 piece premiers. I like the waxy feel. I hate that dry pencil feel. Like nails on a chalk board. Ugh. Hope this helps others.

Thank you for the video. But in the area of professional "fine art" aspirations, there is one crucial element regarding coloured pencils which was not covered - and that is : light-fastness. Price and ease of use may be of greater interest to students and apprentice visual artists but for aspiring professionals there is a more important need to assure clients that our work will not fade after it has been hanging on their walls for awhile. Thanks to the Colored Pencil Society of America (CPSA) coloured pencils are now ASTM rated the same way oils, watercolours and pastels are. All we need do is get a lightfastness catalogue from CPSA (simply by getting a membership).

Great comparison! Loved that you got into the history of it! I have the 24 col-erase set. Don't know how they compare but they're cheap and nice for sketching.

Why would someone ‘not like’ this video? I thought it was great. I love colour pencil reviews and this was really informative. Thanks.

Great video. I've been using my Prismas a lot lately & am really disappointed in them. Out of 120 (?), i had over 40 that were damaged & now more the leads are breaking while I'm using them for no reason. I've bought every sharpener every colorist has recommended. The lead is centered in most of the pencils too. I love to color with them but so frustrated. It's too late to return them. I don't really like my Polychromas. Think I'm going back to Crayolas like I started with!!

my experience with colored pencils has shown that the prisma pro in the tin are definitely harder to sharpen in a mechanical pencil sharpener or electric. the softer lead breaks too often. I also prefer to use a blade and make my own tip depending on what I need, light pressure, and layers is the key, using a tortillaone to blend is necessary. also storage has a lot to do with breakage. Drop that tin on the floor one time and you can bet the insides of the pencil is toast along the entire barrel. In art school we were told to store our pencils in a cloth wrap up case similar to brush carrier. I buy what is on sale and best suits my needs with distress inks out on the market now you can use those to bump up the intensity. You just have to label your work mixed media.

You should try the Dick Blick brand pencils use them in college they're actually pretty nice I like them more than prismacolor

I loved my Spectracolors in the 80s, I had forgotten all about them until you mentioned them.

I think you got ripped off. I got a 72 pack for $40.

I’ve had this video in my Watch Later for YEARS and I honestly can’t believe I’ve never watched it until now. I’ve been out of high school and therefore out of art classes and the studio for a few years now, and you’ve reminded me how fun and exciting learning can be.

Very useful, thank you. I'm wondering if there may be a difference in how lightfast the pencils are? Do they age differently if exposed to daylight?

I tried these and they're good enough but I far prefer Caran d'Ache Prismalo. They're also very expensive, running into hundreds of pounds for large sets, but you have to go with what you're happy with. Great video!

Wow I wish you were my art teacher in high school. My teacher was awful, our "projects" were taking images from Pinterest or Etsy and recreating them. She was lazy.

I loved this vid! You used the scientific method to explain all of it. As an aside, I've used the Premier line for years now. A local art store supplies the individual pencils for our artist community. But, the store is moving and they're ridding themselves of their inventory before moving (a few blocks away). I just loaded up nearly every color in the 150 color line for 40% off! What a killing, restocking my Premier line of pencils!!

I have to say, to me they feel completely different. The cheap Prismas feel a step above old map pencils to me. Been using prismas and pencils since the early 90’s and still use them today for my career.

Hi! The idea of a harder wax being better for beginners is sometimes heard of regarding coloured pencils for kindergartens. I suspect that may be because (sadly) drawing is sometimes considered a precursor to writing... Writing requires a harder and more preciser grip, and the development of a child's drawing is sometimes seen as progressing towards the socalled pencil-grip which uses the arm much less than the finer movements of the hand itself. A harder wax may be indicative of a (sales)culture believing writing is more important than drawing/painting... It is a sad sign of how blindly we value language and developmental psychology.

Just wanted to let you know dickblick online art materials has the 132 set of prismacolor premiers for 46.80! right now. Michaels sales and 50 and at times 60% coupon makes these expensive pencils more affordable. This was very informative, and I like the fish! Crayola has come out with an artist brand of color pencils, Michael's art sales for 27.99 can use 40% coupon daily on. I would like to see you compare those to the scholars. They seem to have good reviews. There is a 48 and 24 pack. I think stores only have the 24. Again enjoyed the tutorial.

I don’t get quality art supplies unless it’s my birthday or Christmas. I usually use markers so I can work faster. I don’t hate Crayola, for the price your paying they’re decent pencils.

Thank you for a clear & intelligent comparison study

Great video. There may be a difference in the lightfastness of the pigments as well. The Premiers are recommended for colouring copper where the colours are heated after application.

Amazon - Prismacolor Premier 72 count is $25 in case someone is interested in them...

I never buy prismacolor premier pencils in store. Amazon has the best prices. I've noticed that in store prices are way overpriced compared to amazon, so I just avoid it altogether now. I loved seeing the comparison video though! I always wondered what the difference was as well

Mr Campbell, what brand or type of paper would you recommend to get the best out of colour pencilling? Thanks

Excellent information. Had no clue there was even a student version. I have had the old spectra colors and the old prisma colors and didn’t know those were both gone now too. Thank you

Any true Artist will try to learn and absorb as much as possible. Your Video was well done and you have a great voice to listen too as well. I have subscribed and will be watching as many as my. Busy life allows. Lol Keep going and I say to you the ones that press dislike , who cares? You don't need to know their negative thought. Just keep doing what your doing in spite of negativity. That is my lecture for today. Lol Have a great day.

Great video! I’m a huge fan of the premiers and I work with them often but I will definitely recommend the scholars to a lot of people for price point and quality.

Thanks Mark for this informative video.I like so much the science in the video. Very organized and well done. Myself i go for Faber Castelle. I think now we can ask you for how to Draw hand video.

Great video. While the premiere pencils DO cost more, they're worth the investment. One other point in favor of the premieres is you can replace individual pencils whereas you cannot with the scholars. One point against them is the reds are too soft and break inside the wood way too often. Mind you, I've been using prismacolors exclusively for the last 16 years. I'm sure you're aware that they blend best with a white base layer, and, when used exclusively, they almost waterproof the work. (I accidentally spilled my coffee on a colleague's piece. Luckily, she had finished the area that got wet and it didn't hurt the work at all. )

Awesome nice video.. and great to know that you are an art teacher.. i think it's a great job.. we can teach and learn at the same time.. and seriously i want to have prismacolors..

I still have my original set of 144 from about 20 years ago. Some are in pencil extenders and some have been replaced. They’ve been in the cupboard for the past few years after I discovered copics. You’ve inspired me to go and get them out of the cupboard thank you.

I like the fact I can use color on color and blend with the same pencil when filling in color dimension and contouring detailed high lights ✌

I watched so many colored pencil reviews. Yours is the most clear and most informative. Thank you!

Usually, the main difference between student and professional grade pigmented media is that the student grade is of questionable colorfastness while the professional grade is completely colorfast. A three-month sun-exposure test (bars of colors from each type of pencil, with half of each bar covered in lightfast material, eg. aluminum foil) would show the difference, or you could do it in a couple of weeks under a UV lamp.

Updated 2/2019: I have since purchased the 48-set of Scholars and I was given the 150-set of Premiers. I love both of them. I do find that the Scholars are a bit scratchier than the Premiers but both have nice colors and blend nicely. I'm still learning the technique of blending too. 3 Months ago: I thank you for this comparison. I'm older and decided to try my hand at art and coloring. I have all these old Crayola colored pencils from when my kids were in school but I was thinking about buying a new set. You sold me on the Scholar set. Now when I've saved up a bit, that's what I will buy. Thank you again.

I do not understand why anyone would dislike this Video . It is fantastic!

The price difference can be diminished if you wait for a sale and use a 40-50% coupon at Michaels.

You also have to take the difference of lightfastness into consideration. To my knowledge the Scholars have no claims of being lightfast at all. However, most of the Premiers have at least a good to excellent lightfast rating.

Maybe it's just me, but I find the Crayola pencil quite soft when compared to similar pencils in that price range. But I prefer to use Derwent Coloursoft and Drawing pencils for actual projects, and Koh-i-Noor Polycolor for details. I still use Crayola for adult colouring books.

You missed one important factor: "Staying power". How long would it take for the colours to start to fade? One thing that I hear from a lot of pro artists is that coloured pencils will fade or otherwise change tone over time (especially if under natural light from the sun). Maybe that is where the extra cash comes in?

Thank-you for the information. I started with a set of Eagle Berols from early 70s, I aquired some Berols in the 80's and finally a large set of Premier Prismacolors in 2000.Quality has changed so much, I loved the old ones so muchmore and it's such an expense to try new ones. My kids now color and draw, as well as grandkids...they get the Crayolas...lol. However, as some are advancing as they age I wanted to get a nicer set, now I know which ones. I am a graphite artist and trying to move into color. The Premiers still are not fully satisfying, so I tried watercolor pencils, still not happy. Many said to switch to Faber Castell Polychromos, are those the same as Spectracolors?

I am also a high school art teacher and I have had the same question. I do think that the premier are easier to blend - especially when using many layers.Scholar are ok - so what I do is buy some of each so I have the quality, but I also have a wider variety of colors without having to spent an outrageous amount of money.

I've been drawing for over 40 years. I have been using Prismacolor Premier and other Prismacolor Products for a very long time. When I found them out I was hooked. If it is color I want from a colored pencil it's Prismacolor Premier. Don't waste money and time. Get them work with them and you'll be happy and not even think twice about any other. Any body who stopped using these just isn't using the medium at that time. Great video. I liked it for you.

I have some Eagle Prismacolor pencils from the 70’s, some Berol from the 80’s and some from the early 90’s and I received some Premiers at Christmas. I can’t see much difference from one to another. I was really surprised!

Somewhere in the history of colored pencils, Spectracolor became Eberhard Faber Design Spectracolor, which was by far the best wax based colored pencil! Rich color, smooth laydown and easy to layer. Not much breakage. Beautiful pencils to look at, too! Too bad the they are long discontinued! I still often buy some to add to my hoard on eBay! Polychromos are great, but they are oil based, which is a totally different thing. Now if only Prismacolor would bring back Deco Blue...

Thanks, good info. For young students I do find that the hard vs soft led makes a huge difference in how often they break the tips while coloring. But that's for just the real young kids. I'm guessing once they are elementary age the hardness isn't as important.

I'm more of a faber castell girl but that's mainly because that's what everyone in my country grew up with. That red packaging for their student grade products is so familiar and synonymous to colored pencils that it's honestly a little awe inspiring how much they've dominated the market here

How Have I spent all my life without this channel? i was today years old when I found one of the coolest channels ever

Canson paper and Prismacolor pencils back in the 70's. Great time.

The quick answer is yes he did find a difference. Also as far as crayola if you have as I do a child with fine motor issues and dysgraphia you want a crayon that reacts to that and those style of pencils do work well when a younger person adds more pressure

I have both and I agree with you. There really isn’t too much of a difference other than the premier pencils are brighter