Best Beginner Colored Pencil Kit: The Five Buys That Cover Every Page

This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

Some content on this site is AI-assisted and reviewed by our editorial team.

Every Black Friday, the beginner colored-pencil shelf does the same thing to new colorists: a 72-count tin goes on sale, it looks like an unbeatable pile of color, and by January nine pencils are worn to stubs while sixty-three sit untouched. The binding problem for a first kit is never palette size — it is paper and pressure. The good news is that every piece pulls its own weight, and Black Friday is exactly when those pieces hit their floors.

Here is the five-piece kit I would hand a brand-new colorist, with the Black Friday math on each piece.

Price check (2025 Black Friday logs; verify live before buying): Prismacolor Premier 24-count stands at $24.99 today · the Strathmore toned gray 9×12 pad checks in at $16.64 · clip coupons still surface on smaller pads — verify live · books in the $10-to-$15 range rarely get Black Friday cuts on Amazon — watch the coupon clip instead. The deal-alert card on our Shop page flags the live drops.

Prismacolor Premier Soft Core Colored Pencils, 24-Count — The Starter Set

Prismacolor Premier Soft Core Colored Pencils, 24-Count is the set I put in every beginner’s hands. Soft cores blend from the very first page — you can lay two colors side by side and melt them together with a light third pass, which is the skill every round of coloring books actually demands. Twenty-four colors is enough for 95 percent of published pages: you shade with pressure, not with a new pencil. The honest con: the tin gives you no room once pencils wear short, so plan a zip case eventually.

My take: the one non-negotiable in the kit — wait for any Black Friday dip and buy two.

Faber-Castell Black Edition Colored Pencils, 36-Count — The Budget Workhorse

The Faber-Castell Black Edition Colored Pencils, 36-Count is the honest budget alternative: extra-soft pigment at $13.99 today, with the high coverage that makes them the best cheap pick in the fleet for dark and toned paper, where Prismacolors can look chalky. Thirty-six colors under fifteen dollars is the value play for anyone coloring with kids or burning through pigment fast. The honest con: fewer skin-tone shades than the Prismacolor starter, which matters the moment you color a portrait page.

My take: if the budget is tight, this replaces the Prismacolor slot and the kit still works — soft cores are the whole trick, not the brand.

Strathmore 400 Series Toned Gray Pad, 9×12 — The Paper Upgrade

The Strathmore 400 Series Toned Gray Pad, 9×12 is the piece beginners skip and shouldn’t. Mid-tone gray paper makes your white pencil and lightest colors do half the work — highlights pop instead of mud, and a mid-tone pass reads as finished shading. At $16.64 for its fifty 9×12 sheets it is the mid-tone paper upgrade in coloring. The honest con: the heavier tooth eats pencils faster than slick book paper, so budget more sharpening.

My take: the highest skill-per-dollar item in the kit — a gray pad teaches more about light than any 72-count tin.

Faber-Castell Kneaded Eraser — The Two-Dollar Essential

The Faber-Castell Kneaded Eraser does the thing nothing else can: press it on a colored-pencil page and it lifts pigment off without crumbs, smears, or torn paper — which is how you carve highlights back out of a page you thought was ruined. About six dollars for the four-pack — under two dollars apiece. The honest con: it drinks up pigment and turns gray, and after a few months it stops lifting cleanly, so it is a consumable, not an heirloom.

My take: not optional — every beginner ruins a page in week one, and this is the undo button.

Worlds of Wonder: A Coloring Book for the Curious — The Book Worth the Kit

Worlds of Wonder: A Coloring Book for the Curious is the book I would buy first from the shelf: intricate double-page spreads with single-sided pages that hold a beginner’s heaviest hand — you can press hard, layer, and erase without pilling the paper or ghosting onto the next page. At its usual price it rounds out the list with a book you will actually finish. The honest con: the paper still buckles under heavy marker layers, so save the marker pages for a bleedproof pad like in our coloring-book gift anchors piece.

My take: books are where the coloring hours actually happen — one good book beats a second pencil set every time.

What’s On Every Beginner Colored Pencil Kit List?

Every beginner kit runs the same spine: a 24-count soft-core set like Prismacolor Premier ($24.99 today), the Faber-Castell Black Edition 36 ($13.99), a mid-tone Strathmore toned gray pad ($16.64), and a kneaded-eraser four-pack ($6.25) — with the budget recovering for the good book. Skip the 72-count tins: soft cores, mid-tone paper, and an undo button cover every beginner problem; extra colors cover none of them.

Common Beginner Mistakes

Buying palette before paper. A $24 pencil set on $1 book paper looks worse than a $5 set on toned gray.

Pressing hard on layer one. Base layers should be light enough to see the paper through; pressure comes last, after the color is built.

Sharpening with a dead blade. Soft cores crumble in cheap sharpeners — one fresh hand-held sharpener saves more pencil than any technique tip.

Waiting for a giant set to “get serious.” Nine pencils is what a page actually uses; the other sixty are for special pages that rarely come.

Keep reading: our under-$25 pencil sets at Black Friday covers the bigger tins if you outgrow the kit, and the Polychromos question is the next honest upgrade.

Deep-focus coloring hits different with an audiobook — Audible’s free trial is here.

ColoredCalm is reader-supported. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. That means if you buy through one of the links above, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend supplies I actually color with.