Product Review Series - Coloured Pencils | Ft. Solabela Fine Art Materials

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

Every now and then we are lucky enough to stumble across something that turns out to be an amazing find.  That is how I felt with the Solabela Fine Art Materials. I literally was scrolling through Amazon looking for an inexpensive set, and these popped up. I had never heard of them, so I took the opportunity to try out something that was brand new (at least to me).

Features:

• Wax based
• Hexagonal barrel
• Soft, thick cores
• Smooth application
• Includes Silver and Gold
• Good variety of colours

These pencils came in a cardboard box, which as I have mentioned makes me a little sad. I strongly dislike the cardboard box, and so I have divided them up into colour families; Reds and Purples, Yellows and Oranges, Blues and Greens, then Earth tones and Grays. 

In the 48 pack, there is a great selection of colours. For me, there is never enough yellows and oranges, but I found these to be decent compared to other sets that I have. There was only one flesh tone, and it wasn't until I was swatching it that I even realized it *was* a flesh tone. It was labelled "Light Slenna" and after some serious googling, I have to conclude that this is either their word or a misspelling of Sienna.

The pencils come pre-sharpened, and generally that's just not good enough for me. However, with these I found that I didn't require them to be sharpened immediately. Which was delightful, I mean who really wants to sharpen if they don't have to?

There are numbers on the pencils, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what they are for. They seem to be all over the map as you can see from the swatch chart below. They may simply be for the manufacturer, I'm not sure.

For testing, I stamped the small sunflower from Lawn Fawn's "Our Friendship Grows" stamp set, with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Staples Brand 110lb cardstock.

The core is soft, but not as soft as Prismacolors (there will be a review of these in the future), and only a very light touch is required for first layer application. They lay down very much like some of the oil based sets I have tried, until about the third layer. Then there is a noticeable wax bloom.

I included the swatching for this set to show an interesting take they did on a few of the colours. Rose Madder Lake, Pale Vermillion, Lime and Grass Green lay down like neon colours. I have never seen this in any other set and found it interesting. I'm super glad that I swatched them and found this out before I was using them on a project.

I found this blank swatch paper online, and have been in contact with the creator to see if I can provide you guys with a link. I'm still waiting to hear back from her. Once I do, hopefully, I'll have a link for you guys so you can print out your own blank swatch cards. This one is fantastic. So fingers crossed.

Final Breakdown:

Pros:

• Good variety of colours
• Has a silver and gold
• Names on the pencils
• Smooth application
• Has some neon colours
• Quality vs Price is very good
• Blends well

Cons:

• Wax bloom after third layer
• Crumble waste when colouring - make sure you have a paper duster
• Box case

I hope you enjoyed today's review. Don't forget you can follow me over on the right sidebar so you don't miss any future reviews or project posts, if you have any experience with these pencils I'd love to hear your thoughts, toss me a line in the comments section below!

Click here to check out my review of the oil based Marco Raffiné Fine Art pencils.

Click here to check out my review of the wax based Color Collection by Conté.