The Caran d’Ache Supracolor watercolour pencil range has the same colours as the oil-based Caran d’Ache Pablo coloured pencil range.
However, while the colours are the same, when drawn on a white paper swatch, the Supracolor colours can vary from the Pablo colours. Particularly so when water is added to the Supracolor swatch, which provides vibrant colour.
You can see the colours of the Pablo range that were outlined in another post.
Check out this course by artist Carole Massey if you want to find out how to use watercolour pencils.
Also, this Caran d’Ache video shows how you can use these two pencil types.
How this post can help you
Like the Pablo coloured pencil post, this post will help you save your time and energy. It will show you what colour family colours and neutral colours are included in the Supracolor coloured pencil range. Use this post together with our post on colour harmonies to help you choose the colours of your next artwork.
This range of pencils, along with the Caran d’Ache Pablo coloured pencil range are amongst my favourite pencils. You can use this post to help you create your next artwork.
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Caran d’Ache Supracolor coloured pencil colours
This post has images of hand-drawn colour swatches for each pencil in the range.
Please note that the metallic pencil colour Bronze is a red-orange colour when drawn on a white paper swatch. Therefore, it is included in the red-orange colour family. You can refer to this disclaimer to see how the analysis was done to decide on colour pencil colours.
The Colour Wheel Clock
The colour wheel moves clock-wise around the wheel. The table below shows the colour family positions on the clock.
| Clock Position | Colour Family |
|---|---|
| 12.00 | Red |
| 1.00 | Red-Orange |
| 2.00 | Orange |
| 3.00 | Orange-Yellow |
| 4.00 | Yellow |
| 5.00 | Yellow-Green |
| 6.00 | Green |
| 7.00 | Green-Blue |
| 8.00 | Blue |
| 9.00 | Blue-Violet |
| 10.00 | Violet |
| 11.00 | Violet-Red |
Caran d’Ache Supracolor colour wheel colours
Of the colour wheel colours, the make up of each is outlined below. While the colours are of varying shades and tones, the predominant base colour belongs to the colour wheel family in which it has been placed.
Red – 12 o’clock
Starting with red at the 12.00 o’clock position, the image below shows the red colour family pencils available in the 120 coloured pencil set.
Red-Orange – 1.00 o’clock
The next colour family group is red-orange at 1.00 o’clock. Please note that this group includes one metallic pencil Bronze. This is because the colour swatch showed it to belong to the red-orange family and not a metallic colour family.
Orange – 2.00 o’clock
The next colour is orange at 2.00 o’clock. The coloured pencil set of 120 includes 5 orange colour family pencils.
Orange-Yellow – 3.00 o’clock
Orange-Yellow sits at the 3.00 o’clock position.
Yellow – 4.00 o’clock
At 4.00 o’clock sits Yellow.
Yellow-Green – 5.00 o’clock
Yellow-Green sits at 5.00 o’clock.
Green – 6.00 o’clock
The colour family of green sits at 6.00 o’clock.
Green-blue – 7.00 o’clock
Green-blue sits at the 7.00 o’clock position.
Blue – 8.00 o’clock
Blue is at the 8.00 o’clock position.
Blue-Violet – 9.00 o’clock
Blue-violet sits at 9.00 o’clock.
Violet – 10.00 o’clock
Violet sits at the 10.00 o’clock position.
Violet-Red – 11.00 o’clock
Violet-Red sits at the 11.00 o’clock position.
Supracolor Colour wheel colour family – Summary
As you can see from the above images, the Caran d’Ache Supracolor Coloured pencil range has pencils in all the colour family colours.
Now let’s look at the neutral and metallic colours in the 120 Caran d’Ache Supracolor set of coloured pencils.
Supracolor’s Neutral Colours
The breakdown of these pencils are as follows.
First there are the 2 metallic colours. Please note that the metallic pencil Bronze, is included in the red-orange colour group.
Next are the neutral-black pencils.
Next is neutral-warm grey.
Next is neutral-warm brown.
Neutral-warm beige.
Neutral-cool grey follows.
Next is neutral-cool brown.
Neutral-cool beige follows.
Finally, white is the final neutral colour.
As you can see, the Caran d’Ache Supracolor coloured pencil set and range is made up of a variety of colours and neutrals.
As noted above, the selection is subjective and the reviewer has chosen colour by looking at the actual physical coloured pencil swatches. Nevertheless, you may find that particular colours belong in different groups or colour families.
Lightfastness
Of the 120 set of coloured pencils, 7 have the lowest lightfast rating of *, 68 coloured pencils have a lightfast rating of **, and 45 have the highest lightfast rating of ***.
Only have a few pencils?
If you’d like to try this range of pencils, you can try a basic set of 12. We have analysed this set of pencils, and provide colour swatches, and the colour recipes of 144 colours that you can make from this set of pencils. You can see the 144 Supracolor colour recipes here.
Make your own colour chart
For your knowledge, it’s advisable to draw up your own colour chart so you can get to know the actual colours of your coloured pencils. You will then see how your pencil perfoms on the papers that you use for your drawings.
Supracolor Interactive colour chart
To help you with this, we created a slim interactive colour chart so you can quickly search and sort these pencils. You can sort these pencil by pencil name, number, and lightfast rating. You can also see their individual colour swatches.
Join our email list to access a library of slim interactive colour charts (including for Supracolor pencils).
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This post was originally published in 2019, updated on 19 November 2019, 20 January 2021, and last updated on 16 August 2021.