Review of Colored Pencils and Drawing Supplies from the Artownlar 72-Piece Art Supply Set

 

So far, I have written about unboxing the Artownlar 72-piece art supply set, which features a large assortment of different kinds of pencils – colored, graphite, charcoal, and watercolor pencils – along with the typical accessories pencils need, like a sharpener, erasers, sanding block, and blending stumps, and a self-wetting brush (the handle can be filled with water) for the watercolor pencils. These supplies are neatly packed in a zippered case and accompanied by a generous pad of paper, which I examined in detail in its own post.

Now that I've given everything a good look, it's time to start using these supplies and see how well they do. I like to do an actual project, rather than just scribbling “test marks”, so for this project, I chose to do a portrait of my late Aunt Myrtha, who was an army nurse in World War II. I had this lovely old photo of her to use for reference. As you can see, it's sepia-toned with a little bit of color added, but I decided to make it full color.

My weapons of choice for this piece would be a graphite pencil for sketching, a pencil sharpener, a kneaded eraser, and colored pencils for the color work. For the paper, I chose one of the tan pages of the provided sketchbook, since the reference photo had that golden undertone. As I mentioned in the sketchbook preview, the tan pages had different textures on each side. The smooth side wouldn't do for a medium like colored pencil, which must be built up in layers for best results, so I chose the side with a noticeable texture (you may need to click the picture to enlarge it).

The provided pencil sharpener was small and simple, but it worked fine on the graphite pencil and the colored pencils. 

There is a nice range of graphite pencils, all the way from 5H to 8B, but I wasn't doing a graphite piece, so I used a 5H for the sketch. If you would like to learn more about the different grades of drawing pencils, I made a blog post that explains it. The harder pencils have less of a tendency to smear, and it's important not to get grey or black pigment mixed into a color portrait – especially in the skin tone. We don't want our subjects to look dead! The pencil worked very nicely for the sketch.

For my eraser, I chose the kneaded eraser, which I prefer over hard erasers. It worked as expected, picking up both the graphite and even the colored pencil, which is usually a little harder to erase.

There are 12 regular and 12 metallic colored pencils in the set. Since I was doing a very traditional portrait, I chose not to use the metallics, this time; I'll save them for another project. The 12 regular colors are very basic, bright colors, but as an experienced artist, it wasn't too difficult to make more subtle and specific hues by layering the colors to blend them. The pencils were very easy to use! They were soft enough to get a pretty satisfactory coverage and blending experience. The paper took the layers of color well, and the portrait came out well, I think. 

I was very pleased with the results. Considering how inexpensive this set is, the Artownlar supplies I've used so far have been a good quality for the money.

Thanks for reading my review! Here are some other reviews of art supplies I've done: 

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/06/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-1-sky.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/07/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-white.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2023/09/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-3-pale.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2024/04/himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-4-jade.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2025/06/miya-himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-5.html

https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2025/07/miya-himi-jelly-gouache-color-review-6.html

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Step-By-Step Tutorial: Valentine Heart Photo Garland

If you're looking for a cute and special Valentine's Day craft project, this pretty garland made from simple materials like cardboard, glue, decorative paper and stickers or whatever you have on hand to decorate your photos will serve as a sweet decoration or a thoughtful gift. 

1. Make some hearts out of cardboard! You can either use a premade stencil to trace hearts onto the cardboard, or make your own by folding a small piece of paper in half and tracing half a heart, then cutting it while folded. 

When you unfold the paper, you will have a heart you can trace around, and also a heart cutout that you can trace inside, whichever is easier. Trace out your hearts on the cardboard and cut them out. I made these hearts about 3 inches tall. 

2. Pick some photos that you want to include in your garland and make photocopies. I used some old family photos from my mom's scrapbook. It's best to use an odd number of photos so that you will have one right in the middle. Cut out the photocopied picture by centering the heart on the image and then tracing around it to cut out the shape. 

You may need to tilt the photo one way or another to make it fit well on the heart. Don't worry if the photo doesn't cover the heart entirely, since we will be adding collage materials around the edges or wherever they are needed. 

3. Find some pretty paper to cover the back of the heart. I used scrapbooking paper, but you could also use wrapping paper or colored tissue or even some pretty colored photos from a magazine or calendar. I chose paper with a slightly more orangey red, since the color copies had a warm yellowish tone. Also, I decided to alternate the patterns on the backs of mine. 

At this point, you can punch holes out on each side of the hearts. Make sure to do this from the photo side so you don't accidentally punch out an important part, like someone's face! 

4. Once everything is glued together, it's time to have some fun! You can use leftover scraps of the backing paper or photos to cover any areas of the heart shapes that the photos didn't cover. I also used some paint around the edges to unify any places that didn't quite line up. That covered the white edges that were peeking out, and it also let me paint a little bit of tone on the photos to make them look even more antique and hand-colored. Add little stickers and cut-out shapes to emphasize and frame your photos.  

4. After you lay out your photos to decide what position they look best, you can use thin ribbon, like I did, embroidery floss, string, or yarn to tie your hearts together into a garland shape. 

I left extra ribbon on each side to make hanging loops:

This will make a wonderful decorative gift, especially for an older relative! It can easily be mailed in a Valentine card. 

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