Are Stockmar crayons REALLY all that great?

If you're new to Waldorf, you've probably heard about the wonderful art supplies.  Some choose to take the plunge, and some choose to make a beeline back to Crayola after looking at the price tag.  For a long while, I was reluctant.  N is our resident artist, and she has gone through thousands of Crayola crayons in the past 3 or so years.  I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on Stockmar only to have them all broken and gone within a month!



Our current crayon setup!  Twig pencils are from when we went apple picking in September

Last Christmas, I took the plunge and bought N a set of 8 Stockmar block crayons.  We still have about half of them, and they are still in their block shape and not very worn out, despite being colored with for about a year!  The 4 that were lost were due to us not helping her show reverence for her things- we've changed that now. 

This year, the girls' gift from the Halloween Fairy was a box of 16 Stockmar stick crayons.  They are holding up extremely well!  They are very sturdy and not easily broken, unlike their Crayola counterparts.  The quality of the mark left by these crayons is simply awesome.  It is thick and richly colored.  Beeswax is a perfect medium for crayons, and I don't think we'll ever go back to Crayola.

We have had the opportunity to try Stockmar's watercolor paint as well, for wet on wet painting.  I find that it works very (better than the store brand tubes) well when using the wet-on-wet technique, but for dry watercolor painting, it works as well as cheap watercolor tubes.  The pigment is a lot nicer than the cheapie stuff, though. 

It is also important to use the proper paper and brushes.  Cheapie paper will pill and tear when using the wet-on-wet technique, and cheap brushes will shed all over your painting!

Happy creating!