Pencil Blend 125 ml

Serves the purpose.

warning ... only use in open space with airflow. the smell, for me, is too much. About the same intensity as terps.

Zest it, is a good product. Why? It brings colours alive, particularly with grainy properties. Makes work efficient, rather than to work endlessly on making colours perfect. Very pleased with this pencil blend. Before applying zest it pencil blend ensure you have placed down enough pigment, otherwise the liquid would have washed off your colour. Allow your colours to dry after applying zest it. At least a few hours of drying would be ideal, before you can apply more pigment if desired.

Helps a lot with colour pencil blending. Speeds up the whole process of drawing , with great results.

A good pencil blender solution with a noticeable smell which is a mix of oranges and chemicals. This is used in the same way as odourless mineral spirits with coloured pencils either to achieve a more painterly result, assist in colour blending, or to move pigment down into the paper off the "teeth" so further layers can be applied. Because of the smell you will want to be sure you only use it with adequate ventilation and do not keep it out/open longer than necessary. Pour a little into a small cap or similar and use some cheap brushes (do not use nice brushes that you use for actual painting) to spread it on. Easy to use, but do note that results will vary depending on the brand/range of pencils. In terms of ranges I have personally tried it with, it works exceptionally well with Faber-Castell Polychromos and reasonably well with Castle Arts Gold and Faber-Castell Black Edition but less well with Castle Arts Soft/Pasteltint/Harmonious. As such your first purchase can be a bit of a gamble unless you can find out how well it works with the pencils you intend to use it with. I would add, in the event you use metallic coloured pencils, that due to the way such pencils achieve their metallic effect (which is never that metallic anyway) the metallic sheen will be lost if you use this.

This solvent is AWESOME for colored pencil. I soaked a little into a sponge and put that in a small, plastic container with a lid. Then I used a paintbrush to lightly pick up the solvent from the sponge and spread it on my drawing. You can see the attached images of the before/after/and in progress of how it breaks down the pencil to more smoothly get into the tooth of the paper. Is it an essential tool? No. But it's really fun and can give pictures an extra dimension. I'm really enjoying playing with it.