Trying out some art supplies from Arteza (Patreon)

Some time ago I was approached by Arteza,  who asked me to review some of their products. I could pick the art supplies they had listed on their website. I decided on these two products:

Acid-Free Spiral Bound Premium Drawing Pad
80 sheets
9 in per 12 in (22,9 x 30,5 cm)
130 g/m² 

24 Woodless Premium Colored Pencils

Colored Pencils are not my usual tool of choice,  but I got really nostalgic when I saw the woodless ones. Some years in the past  I had a pack of those and I loved using them, so I thought I could give it a try once again. I was aware that this type of colored pencils is very specific though. They tend to be pretty hard, so unlike soft  leaded pencils, they will be pretty tough to erase if you make a mistake. I started with a very soft base sketch with a color AC 2002 named Peach.

Side note: It's pretty cool that Arteza gave those colors names and not only numbers 👍

After filling the base with soft shade of Peach I moved to building up hues and values. I decided to stick with the complementary colors of pinks, purples and blues, that in the end contrasted perfectly with juicy greens.
Pencils required to be pressed harder to get out some deeper darker tones. Rubbed with finger they don't smudge. Cool to work with if you know what you're doing and have some color theory figured out - these pencils are almost impossible to erase. Not easy to sharpen, tip tends to break, and if that happens pencils will leave a fall out for a while.

If it comes to the drawing pad itself, I really enjoyed working with it. Perforated pages, even though requiring a solid pull to detach them - didn't tear up. 130 g/m²  is a really good thickness and density to avoid accidental bending of the page while erasing unwanted soft pencil lines. I tried this paper out with  mechanical pencil I usually work with (lead 2B) and I can totally recommend it. There's very little smudging going on, however you can make it work if put in some force into purposeful blending.

Just as stated on the front page of the drawing pad - it's ideal for variety of dry media. Especially for the soft leads and charcoal, not so much for the hard leads below B softness.  Soft lead lines are easily erasable even few times in the same erasing spot.

To summarize:

 24 Woodless Premium Colored Pencils:

+ vibrant colors
+ good for layering
+ good for kids

- hard to erase
- a lot of pressure needed to get to that good juicy hues
- hard to sharpen

 Acid-Free Spiral Bound Premium Drawing Pad: 

+ spiral bound
+ great thickness
+ awesome for soft dry media
+ very little smudging
+ durable

+/- needs more force to tear out a page along the perforation