HISTORY

Koh-I-Noor Hardmuth is a Czech brand established in 1790 by Josef Hardmuth. It is very popular in countries like Poland, but less known in West Europe because of brands such as Faber-Castell. Koh-I-Noor is one of the biggest producers of art supplies in the world, always innovative and with competent prices. It is my favourite brand in terms of quality and price, and this is why I have tried many art supplies from it.

SPECIFICATIONS

Progresso pencils are the woodless alternative for Polycolor pencils, but with up to 3 times more pigment. These pencils are made of graphite mixed with clay and pigment and, just like the Polycolor, they are wax-based with an oil bathe. The Progresso pencils have an alternative watercolour version, which is called “Progresso Aquarelle”.

The leads of Progresso pencils are 7.1 mm, which makes them quite solid in appearance, and also heavy. I said solid in appearance because they are easy to break if they fall on the floor, as they have no protective case.

I saw some barrels have different style, but the ones in my set have the words “Progresso Koh-I-Noor” printed on black letters, and they also include both the name and the number of the colour, which is wonderful as the other pencils by the same brand are arranged by number only.

Regarding the lightfastness, 13 of the colours of the chart reach the maximum grade (*****), 7 reach the grade ****, 2 reach the grade *** and 4 the grade **, which means more than 80% of the series has an excellent lightfastness.

PERFORMANCE

Progresso pencils are rounded, handy, they don’t smell much but spread crumbs when applied to the paper (nothing serious, really). They don’t smudge because the barrel is protected by a transparent lacquer, but it can smudge around the tip, which is the area that is not lacquered.

These pencils can be sharpened to a fine point with any standard sharpener, something that we don’t have to do too often, because the tip lasts for quite a long time. The pigments are vivid and saturated, and they don’t leave too much wax traces on the paper. The lead is nor too soft nor too hard, it covers the paper well and it blends decently.

In this image, I used one red and one orange to check the blendability. The first sample shows the two colors alone, the second one has been blended with Derwent pencil blender and the third one with Derwent blender marker:

SETS AND PACKAGING

Progresso pencils are presented in a carton package with sturdy transparent plastic trays (I have also seen the trays in black colour) which I am not entirely sure whether they will protect the pencils in case of an impact, although I appreciate that they were not commercialized in a carton packaging. The tray comes with separators that prevent the pencils from rolling inside the package, which is a good thing. The pencils come arranged by colours and pre-sharpened. The 24 pencils set is also available in a beautiful wooden box.

The available sets are of 6, 12 and 24 pencils, being 26 the available colours in the chart, which is somehow disappointing, because if they are supposed to be the Polycolor alternative, then there should be more colours available. The colour palette is not parallel to the Polycolor one, and some of the colours are not that relevant. For example, I bought the set of 12 (which I much regretted later because they were so cheap in the physical store (3,50 pounds when converted from Czech crowns, as of december 2018) and, seeing their performance, I thought I should have bought the 24 pencils set, but when I later checked the colours included in the 24 set, I discovered they were more or less the same ones as in the 12 pencils set, just more blue and green tones, some purple and orange. In other words: I think the colour palette is insufficient and it is missing many relevant colours. Considering the price and the performance, it is realistic to assume that many customers would be interested in purchasing bigger sets. Earlier I mentioned that the biggest set available has 24 colours and yet the palette includes 26, which means there are 2 extra colours that need to be purchased separately. Those colours are standard gold and standard silver, which I don’t know why they come apart from the biggest set.

COLOUR CHART AND DEMO

The colour chart for the 12 pencils set goes as it follows:

3 White / 1 Light yellow / 2 Orange / 9 Light red / 10 Carmine / 8 Dark violet / 6 Light blue / 7 Dark blue / 4 Sap green / 5 Hooker’s green / 11 Brown / 23 Black

As I mentioned earlier, for once both the colour names and the numbers are included on the barrel of the pencils. But when we go to the official 2018-2019 catalogue, the pencils are arranged by names, without the numbers. In addition to this, the names of the colours in the catalogue do not match with the ones on each barrel (for example, the white tone is called “titanium white” in the catalogue). Quite confusing…

Here is an illustration I completed with the Progresso pencils (I had to blend several colours to get more brown and green tones, because the 12 set is quite limited). While the light blue in this set is too dark to be called “light”, the yellow tone produces very strong results compared to the yellow tones in other brands, which are typically quite waxy. The yellow colour in this set is brighter and more pigmented than the average, something much appreciated.

WHERE TO BUY

Progresso woodless pencils are quite affordable, although not as cheap as buying them in the physical shop. You can get them both in the official site and in Amazon, although Amazon is cheaper, as it tends to happen. The set of 24 pencils is around 10-12 pounds. Progresso pencils can also be purchased individually.

All of the Progresso sets in Amazon UK

CONCLUSION

Progresso pencils make an excellent case of pencils which are a fantastic value for their price. I know some people have listed them in the category of novice pencils, but I think they can act as professional pencils on a budget. The problem is not the performance or the vividness, not even the lightfastness (which, as we saw, it is excellent). The problem is the colour palette is insufficient, and I hope in the future the brand will realize and release more tones. On the other hand, I like the idea of woodless pencils because, even I appreciate the smell and craft behind a traditional wooden pencil, it is important to find ecological alternatives for every field, including art.

PROS, CONS AND RATING

The best: the price and the highly pigmented colours.
The worst: the limited colour palette.
Rating: 8/10

MORE INFORMATION

Official site