Thirty-two Shades of Gray

Here is the chart of gray pencil color samples that I was writing about. It's kind of off kilter but the color reproduction is good enough. A lot of different brands are represented here, with the most being Prismacolors. I could get extensively geeky about describing the different qualities that go with each brand but I may have done this already. Anyway the two major ones are Prismacolors and their rivals from Blick Studio. These colors are rare and not easy to find. They are almost never included in basic color sets although Blick in its understanding of artists has created an all-grey set ready to go. You can find some of these colored pencils at retail art stores, which are an endangered breed. I have collected these over the years and some of them, like the wonderful "Fell Mist" produced by Derwent pencils, will never appear again. With Prismacolors you get three lines of grays, cool gray for seas and clouds, warm gray for stone and city, and brownish French Gray for earth and trees. (What's so French about brownish gray?) These pencils are perfect for landscapes. They are not opaque and only the thickest ones will cover over what you've drawn or are coloring in, so you can use them in all sorts of blends. And they are perfect for the equinox colors we have at the beginning of spring, just before the environment erupts with leaves in the brilliant pencil color of "green bice," which I have on order.

Colored pencils on sketchbook page, 9" x 12". March 2018. You are welcome to select and download this chart for your own coloring reference.