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Martha in VA
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Posted: Dec 06 2007 at 10:25pm | IP Logged Quote Martha in VA

Today we did our first ever picture study. My girls had so much fun studying the picture and then trying to draw it themselves. Their only frustration was due to the colored pencils they were using. It wasn't possible for them to blend the colors to really make their art look like the painting. So I'm wondering, is there such as a thing as a blendable crayon? Or should I give them oil pastels for this sort of work? Thanks!

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Mackfam
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Posted: Dec 07 2007 at 6:56am | IP Logged Quote Mackfam

We're fans of blendable watercolor pencils and lovely oil pastels here. Really, it just depends on my children, and their mood that particular day. But yes, Martha, watercolor pencils will blend. So will beeswax crayons to a certain extent. But for a more polished look, I like the watercolor pencils on watercolor paper (you'll need the heavier paper or your artwork will crinkle!)

I'm warning you, the foray into good art supplies is an expensive one, but we've found that it is worthwhile to have a little of good quality than a lot that is disappointing to work with!

Everyone has a favorite brand. The prismacolors are generally a hands down winner for awesome watercolor pencils, but as I said expensive. LYRA is another great brand, and one of our favs. You might try a couple of smallish sets, let the kids experiment a bit, and then once they develop preferences invest more heavily for next year's art. We have several brands. I use Prang for my little guy, and sometimes my 7yo. A good general purpose color pencil - nothing fancy! We have a LYRA Rembrandt Aquarelle set of 36 and a Prismacolor Watercolor set of 24 for our nicer projects and my 11yo and 7yo love these. We also have just purchased and LOVE a large set of LYRA oil pastels. These are cherished here for the vibrancy of color.

A quick google search on the type of pencil you're looking for should yield a myriad of choices!

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Martha in VA
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Posted: Dec 07 2007 at 8:54am | IP Logged Quote Martha in VA

Thank you, Jennifer. That is exactly the information I needed!



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Posted: Dec 07 2007 at 8:07pm | IP Logged Quote Mackfam

Oh I'm so glad Martha!

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cathhomeschool
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Posted: Dec 11 2007 at 8:54am | IP Logged Quote cathhomeschool

Martha -- You could also use chalk pastels. With chalk and oil pastels, I would "seal" the finished picture with a spray fixative. This keeps the picture from smudging once the kids have blended all that they want. We have Stone beeswax crayons and find that they can be blended but don't need the spray fixative.

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simplemama
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Posted: Dec 19 2007 at 11:04am | IP Logged Quote simplemama

My dd is 4, is it to early to invest in quality art supplies? I wonder if she will appreciate them more than he crayola stock (yhat she gets quite bored with)

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Fe2h2o
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Posted: Dec 19 2007 at 11:25pm | IP Logged Quote Fe2h2o

simplemama wrote:
My dd is 4, is it to early to invest in quality art supplies? I wonder if she will appreciate them more than he crayola stock (yhat she gets quite bored with)


I don't know how much it is because they are my pencils he's using, and how much is because the quality is so much better, but Puggle (3 1/2) is always far more careful, and far more inspired when using my pencils rather than his (definitely cheap and not-so-good).

I have some Lyra pencils and the block crayons put away for him until January when we start our year...

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