HISTORY

Koh-I-Noor is a Czech Brand that was founded in 1790 by Josef Hardmuth. It is popular in countries like Poland or the Czech Republic, but less known perhaps in West European countries because of other brands such as Faber-Castell. Koh-I-Noor is an innovative brand which has created beautiful series such as Magic pencils or Tri-tone, with multicoloured leads, and it is my favourite brand in terms of quality and price.

SPECIFICATIONS

Mondeluz pencils are the watercolour pencils series by Koh-I-noor, considered as one of the best watercolour pencils in the world. These pencils are hexagonal for a better gripping and have 3,8 mm leads with a colour matching the lead. The top of each pencil is open, so we can see the end of a well-centered lead. These pencils are handy and light. They give off a curious and nice scent different from the one of the Polycolor series.

In one side of the barrel we can read the name and the series of the brand, the number of the series and the number of each colour (no name attached), all of it in engraved golden letters. There is also a tiny picture of a brush that indicates the pencil has watercolour properties.

Mondeluz series is parallel to the Polycolor one when it comes to colours, but it is important to notice that the lightsfastness is different, in this case inferior. Only 9 colours reach the maximum resistance (which is *****), 12 reach the ****, 8 colours reach the ***, there are 45 colours with the ** and, lastly, 7 colours with the *, which are mainly the rose tones. This means that more than half of the palette will degrade under the light effects with the passing of time, so I consider these colours aren’t suitable to work on a commission, which of course doesn’t mean they are not vivid and beautiful to work with.

PERFORMANCE

Mondeluz pencils are easily blendable and have vibrant colours that become even livelier when applying water on them. They don’t smudge when dry, but can spread some crumbs if we sharpen them to a fine point.

In this image I used 2 different blues to check the blendability. The first sample shows the 2 colours alone, the second one has been blended with Derwent pencil blender and the third one with Derwent blender marker:

In this sample I applied water to a couple of warm tones to check how they work:

SETS AND PACKAGING

Mondeluz pencils come in sets of 12, 24, 36, 48 and 72 units in both carton packages and tins. I bought the Fruit Aquarelle version, which comes in a carton package and comprises a selection of 36 lively tones especially thought to draw flowers and fruits. The pencils that come in a carton package are cheaper, but obviously this is not the ideal case to transport them. Like I said, they are also available in the typical tin without hinges that the brand uses for the rest of the series.

The biggest set includes 72 pencils, although the total number of colours is 82 if we count the tones that come in special sets such as Grey or Brown lines. To get the 10 remaining pencils one would have to purchase the special series in addition to the biggest set, which would force us to have duplications. The other option is to buy the pencils individually. They are available both in Amazon and in Koh-I-Noor physical shops, which is the cheapest option, but one doesn’t go to Czech Republic everyday, right? Amazon is quite a convenient option to purchase sets, but certainly not to purchase individual pencils. Anyway, like I said in the Polycolor entry, some of the 72 colours are similar, so there is no need to get all of them, and I consider that a set of 36 or 48 pencils is more than enough.

COLOUR CHART AND DEMO

The colour chart for my 36 pencils set is the following:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 8 / 9 / 13 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33 / 34 / 35 / 36 / 131 / 132 / 170 / 177 / 178

As mentioned above, these pencils don’t include the name of each color on the barrel, only the number. However, and just like it happens with the Polycolor series, when we grab the official 2018-2019 catalogue and take a look at the Mondeluz, we find the opposite case: the colours are arranged by names, not by numbers. This confusion prevents me from offering the names of the colours in this chart (I would have to find out the 36 colours of my set from the 82 available tones). Anyway, the colour names are the same ones as in the Polycolor case.

Here is an illustration I made using the Mondeluz pencils. Please, notice I didn’t use much pressure, so the colours are somewhat pale:

WHERE TO BUY

Mondeluz pencils can be purchased in both Amazon and the official Koh-I-Noor site, although the first option is the most convenient one. They tend to be very economical: you can get the 72 set in a carton package for around 25 pounds and for around 40 pounds in a tin, which is an amazing price.

All Mondeluz series in Amazon UK

CONCLUSION

Mondeluz pencils are highly pigmented and make a great acquisition for those artists who love watercolour pencils. They are affordable and competent.

PROS, CONS AND RATING

The best: the colours are vivid.
The worst: the lightfastness is low for more than half of the colour chart.
Rating: 7/10

MORE INFORMATION

Official site