UPDATED: October 6, 2020
Have you got a set of Derwent Inktense blocks? You love the colours but don’t know which ones belong on the colour wheel? This post will show you the colours of the 72 blocks in the Derwent Inktense range.
The colours have been sorted into colour wheel colour family groups and neutral colours. This has been done to help you create your artwork. Use this post together with our post on colour harmonies to help you choose the colours of your next artwork.
Please read this disclaimer about how this analysis was undertaken.
This vibrant range of water soluble ink can be used to draw, and as an ink wash on paper or fabric. If you’d like to know how to draw on fabric, Derwent shows you how with Inktense blocks and with Inktense pencils.
Interactive colour charts
Do you want to quickly search and sort these blocks by name, number and lightfast rating – and see their colour swatches? You can use the simple interactive chart here. Or, if you want to sort by colour wheel colour family and neutral group as well, you can access an expanded chart by clicking the image below.
Following a series of ‘closer looks’
Recently, we provided a series of closer looks at the colours in a variety of ranges of coloured pencils. This was the wax-based Prismacolor Premier, both lightfast, and non-lightfast pencils in this range, Prismacolor Art Stix; Caran d’Ache Luminance, and Derwent Drawing coloured pencils. The series included the oil-based pencils Faber Castell Polychromos and Caran d’Ache Pablo. Finally, it included the water soluble coloured pencils Caran d’Ache Supracolor and Caran d’Ache Museum. This post will expand that series to include other mediums that can also used with coloured pencils to create artwork.
This post will help you save your time and your energy. It will show you what colour wheel family colours and neutral colours are included in the Derwent Inktense blocks range.
Let’s start…..
This post has colour swatches of the colours in the Inktense blocks range. For your convenience, the left hand side of the swatches shows the block used dry. The right hand side of the swatches show the dampened block colour.
The Derwent Inktense blocks colour wheel colours
The 12 colour wheel family colours available in blocks are shown clockwise below:
The Colour Wheel 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 |
Of the color wheel colours, the make up of each colour family 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 colours in the 72 Derwent Inktense block range.
Red-Orange – 1.00 o’clock
The next colour family group is red-orange at 1.00 o’clock.
Orange – 2.00 o’clock
The next colour is orange at 2.00 o’clock.
Orange-Yellow – 3.00 o’clock
Orange-Yellow sets 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 7.00 o’clock.
Blue – 8.00 o’clock
Blue is at the 8.00 o’clock position.
Blue-Violet – 9.00 o’clock
Blue-violet sits at the 9.00 o’clock position.
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.
Colour wheel colour family – Summary
As you can see from the above images, the Derwent Inktense range of 72 blocks has pencils in all the colour family colours.
Let’s now look at the neutral colours included in the Derwent Inktense range of blocks.
Derwent Inktense Blocks Neutral Colours
First, let’s look at neutral-black.
Next is cool-brown.
After that is neutral-warm brown.
Finally, neutral-white.
As you can see, the Derwent Inktense set of 72 blocks is made up of a variety of colours and neutrals.
As noted above, the selection of colour is subjective and the reviewer has chosen colour by looking at the actual block swatches. Nevertheless, you may find that particular colours belong in different groups or families.
An almost complete lightfast set of blocks.
The text below is from Derwent’s inktense colour chart. It shows that Derwent uses the Blue Wood Scale (ISO 105) to evaluate lightfastness. It states that 3,4 is fair, moderate. 5,6 is a good to very good lightfast rating, and that 7,8 is an excellent lightfast rating.
Of the 72 set of blocks, six blocks have a lightfast rating of 6. Thirty-two blocks have a lightfast rating of 7. Thirty blocks have the highest lightfast rating of 8. Four blocks have a mixed rating of 4 or 5, 5 or 6, 6 or 7, and 7 or 8.
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 Inktense blocks. You will then see how your blocks perform on the papers that you use for your drawings, paintings or fabric work.
But sometimes making a chart can take time. It’s something that we don’t get around to doing. But, regardless of whether you’ve made a chart or not, you sometimes need information when you are not near them.
Interactive Inktense Colour Chart
To help you find the information you need about the Derwent Inktense blocks, we have gathered information about these blocks and have created an interactive chart. You can access the chart by clicking the image below. This chart should help you choose your colours. It will also help you get a better understanding of the blocks in the range.
We hope this post will help you. Save it for later to your ‘Inktense blocks’ board on Pinterest.
