I received very good news at Creativation 2023 this year. Derwent expanded their line of Inktense pencils from 72 pencils to 100 colored pencils! I am very excited for the addition to the Inktense colored pencil series.
What are Derwent Inktense Colored Pencils used for? They are watercolor pencils that are permanent once they are dry. They can go on ceramics, wood, fabric and paper. Many of them are lightfast once dry and have a rating on each pencil. They are perfect for backgrounds and to use on their own for a project. The colored pencils are activated with water and turn into "ink". The pencil colors can be mixed together and activated at the same time or they can be layered after each layer has dried.
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The Derwent Inktense pencils can be used in a variety of different ways.
- The pencil can be applied to a medium and then wetted and spread.
- The pencil can be wet when applied to a medium.
- A paint brush can be used to grab the pigment ink from the pencil either from another paper with a swatch or directly from the pencil lead itself.
Color Information
Here are all new colors of Derwent Inktense Colored Pencils for 2023. I have included just the new colors in the chart below. Find the chart here.
- Amethyst 0735, Sugar Plum 0715, Pink Flamingo 0405, Persian Red 0330, Paprika 0317, Wild Flame 0313, Orange Sorbet 0255, Mango 0245, Golden Sun 0225, Gold 0215, Lemon 0110, Lime Green 1535, Olivine 1340, Jungle Green 1410, Mint Leaf 1240, Malibu 1213, Sea Breeze 1225, Mineral Blue 1215, Dark Cerulean 1010, Denim 0835, Lapis Blue 0825, Violet Blue 0805, Nightshade 0770, Storm Dust 2107, Asphalt 2103, Burnt Umber 1903, Dark Mink 2130, Natural Brown 1907
How To Get the New Pencils
The new 28 Derwent Inktense colored pencils can be a little tricky to find in US right now. They are available in England right now, that is how I got them. Derwent tends to release products in England first and have more availability over there than they do here. For example they have a 28 tin for these and the lightfast pencils, but they have no such thing in the US.
The new 100 box of Derwent Inktense was 348 at the time of this post. I already have the 72 and do not want to pay 348 more dollars to get 28 pencils. I had to get the 28 by themselves. That is what I would highly recommend doing because otherwise it will be a lot of money. It is also cheaper to get the 100 pencils by themselves than pay 348, the pencils at the time of writing this are 2.10 per pencil.
This is the case that my 28 colored pencils came in. It is a good idea to find somewhere to store them if the tin is not purchased. That is the downside to not being able to get a tin.
The pencil pouch can be found on Amazon.
Swatch Charts
I have made a swatch chart for the 100 Derwent Inktense Colored Pencils.
Click here to get the chart. There are several ways to fill in the chart. This first chart I lightly colored in the rectangle and then activated the color with water.
This next chart I did not color on the chart with the colored pencil, but I used the a supersaturated chart after this to pick up the color and fill in like a watercolor. I think this method is my favorite because there are no pencil marks.
Just for kicks and giggles I wanted to see what the colors looked like when they were super saturated. This is the chart filled in with the colored pencil pressed as hard as I could before I activated the colors. This is also what the colors would look like before they are activated. They can be used like this and not activated. Some of the lighter colors are super pretty this way. Some of the darker colors do not have much color differentiation at this point.
This is the chart with the colors activated. As with the chart before the colors were activated some of the colors are super dark, but the lighter colors are super vibrant and pretty. I did notice that the colored pencils color mark on the paper changed when the mark was activated.
When a company offers new colored pencils colors it is very important that the colors are different. Here is the first chart with the colors circled that are new. Most of the colors are different. Amethyst, Malibu, Mint Leaf, Storm Dust, amd Jungle Green are vastly different. Some of the yellow and red colors are similar to colors already available. Would I get the rest of them? Yes, because I did, but for people trying to decide look at the chart and see what colors are vastly different.
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