What’s the first thing most people do when they buy a new set of coloured pencils? Swatch them out.
Because almost every brand struggles with the same thing – matching the colour on the outside of the pencil to the actual pigment colour when you use it.
Creating colour swatches can be a fun part of the process – in fact, many collectors (my husband included!) enjoy swatching their coloured pencils more than actually colouring with them!
Where to Find Colour Swatch Charts
There are a lot of websites where people have created their own swatch charts you can print and use for any brands. I’ve even got some of my own resources here, including my huge printable Swatch Kit that you can print and customise in many ways.
But in this post, I wanted to gather the official brand colour swatch charts so you can download them directly from the source. These usually come with the order of the supplies as the manufacturer intends, and can be a great way to swatch out all your colours with little effort.
Official Coloured Pencil Charts (Free printables direct from the brands)
Here’s a list of all the coloured pencil brands that offer printable charts. Click on a coloured pencil brand below to jump down in this article for more information on the charts they have available. In the article below, I’ve linked each one to the source directly – so they will take you to the coloured pencil brand swatch page, not download from here.
- Derwent: Artist, Chromaflow, Coloursoft, Drawing, Inktense, Lightfast, Procolour
- Faber-Castell: Polychromos, Goldfaber, Black Edition
- Prismacolor Premier
- Caran d’Ache Luminance and Pablo
- Holbein Artist’s Pencils
- Arrtx Coloured Pencils
- Black Widow Coloured Pencils
- Koh-I-Noor: Polycolor, Tricolor, Tritone, Progresso Woodless
- Castle Arts Coloured Pencils
Derwent Colour Charts
Derwent don’t have blank printable swatch charts, but they do have a thorough collection of detailed colour chart for all of their coloured pencils, including Derwent Artist, Derwent Chromaflow, Derwent Coloursoft, Derwent Drawing, Derwent Inktense, Derwent Lightfast, Derwent Procolour, and more.
Each colour chart has a sample of the colour and shows all the sets that it comes in.
They do include a printable swatching template, but it doesn’t apply to any specific brand and is similar to other blank swatching templates.
Faber-Castell Swatch Charts
Faber-Castell have a detailed list of colour charts and blank swatch pages for all of their products. They include the Polychormos Coloured Pencils, the Goldfaber Coloured Pencils, and the Black Edition Coloured Pencils. They also include all their watercolors, classic pencils, Pitt Artist Pens and more.
Each of the colour charts and blank swatch charts are listed separately, and they also have the lightfast rating data for the Polychromos range.
Prismacolor Premier Color Chart
Prismacolor don’t share their official colour charts on their website (at least, not in an obvious place!) but I did find this copy of their official chart for the Prismacolor Premier pencils, hosted on Blick’s website, who is one of their main retailers.
This chart includes all the original colours – it includes the discontinued Lavender and Lilac instead of the newer Amethyst and Orchid coloured pencils.
It has their lightfast ratings (which I’ve tested myself and found to be accurate) but doesn’t include any blank swatches.
Caran d’Ache Colour Charts
I haven’t found one place where you can easily access all the Caran d’Ache colour charts together, but they are included on the website under each product when they are available. The charts include the colours, a swatch, and the official lightfast ratings for each pencil. Not all products have this information.
Scroll down on each of these pages to download the colour charts they have available.
Holbein Colour Charts
Holbein have a large list of their colour charts available on their website, including the Holbein Artists’ Coloured Pencils. The charts include the colour names, codes and swatches – along with lightfast ratings where applicable.
They don’t appear to offer blank swatch charts for any of the products.
Arrtx Swatch Charts
Arrtx have blank printable swatch charts for most of their products, including their coloured pencils. You’ll have to scroll for a while to get to the pencil charts, but they are nicely designed and easy to download.
Black Widow Swatch Charts
Black Widow coloured pencils come in a 7 different sets: Black Widow (AKA Spider set), Scorpion, Cobra, Dragon, Monarch, Light Tones and Dark Tones.
This page includes a coloured pencil chart and a blank swatch chart for each brand. The colours have been scanned in, so it’s great that there’s the blank DIY version for a more accurate swatch chart.
Koh-I-Noor PDF Colour Charts
Koh-I-Noor has probably the best collection of colour swatch charts I’ve seen so far. For each product, they include a full colour chart and blank swatch chart to make your own with your supplies. These include the Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils, the Koh-I-Noor Tricolor, Koh-I-Noor Tritone, Koh-I-Noor Progresso Woodless, and more.
Each chart includes the names, codes and lightfast ratings where applicable.
Other Coloured Pencil Brands
There are many other coloured pencil brands that don’t share official swatch charts on their websites. Some have blank swatch charts included in their actual products, which makes them easy to keep with the products.
Some that I researched include:
- Brutfuner
- Kalour
- Posca (they have coloured charts for the paints, but not pencils)
- Markart
- Staedtler
- Ohuhu (Lots of marker charts, but not pencils)
I’m also working through more brands to add to this list while we’re in the process of adding them to the Colour Companion – where we plan to have the most accurate colour data available, and printable swatch chart options you can fully customise.
What to do when you can’t find a chart…
It’s surprisingly hard to find official charts, which is why most artists end up creating their own blank charts using something like the Super Swatch Kit or Swatchdex. It’s also a feature we’re building into the Colour Companion – to allow you to easily create custom templates with your own brands, sorted in your own perfect order!
I’ll be adding more brands to this list whenever I find more official colour charts available. You can also find customer-made free printable swatches on Google or Pinterest, or you can make your own using the Printable Super Swatch Kit I’ve created, or check out the Swatchdex to create your own professional swatching system!
Where would one find help with Ohuhu colors?
Do you know if Faber Castell Connector Pens have individual names or numbers and where to find them?
Thank you Sarah access to these pencil swatch charts is so helpful. Much appreciated.
I want tomkmow your on acrylic markers they are really the mediums for colorist