WHSmith watercolour pencils

I had a gift voucher for WHSmith this week so I went and mooched through the art supplies. This tin of 24 watercolour pencils was on sale for £4.99 (normal price £9.99) so I picked it up and thought I'd try them out. The main reason I got them was for the pinks and browns - skin tones that I didn't already have - but there's a nice range of colours and tones in the tin with nothing really missing.

When I tried them I was absolutely thrilled with the quality. I'd expected something that would be lower quality for the price they were, especially compared with the Derwent Inktense pencils I've got which cost £1.75-ish each. But the WHSmith pencils were better in almost every way!

The pencils were smooth and easy to colour with, and they look just like normal pencil colours before you put water on them. They blend beautifully, you can get some very intense colours if you pick them up from the lead with a brush, and the range of colours is really good. The only colour I really felt was missing was a bright red, but I have one in my Inktense pencils (chilli red).

I can only think of one negative about the pencils actually, and that's that I don't think they're available as individual colours - I didn't see any in the shop (although it is a small shop in my town) and the pencils themselves don't have any names or numbers on them.

So to sum up:

• Great quality
• Good range of colours
• Easy to work with and blend
• Lovely watercolour look when they're wetted
• Very cheap
• Unavailable in single pencils, only in tins of 24 or 36

Swatches: