Caran d'Ache's own best seller. Forty Luminance colours is the set most serious coloured pencil artists end up living with: warm and cool versions of every key colour, proper earths and greys, enough skin tones to start portraits, and still compact enough for a desk drawer. Creamy, archival and genuinely joyful to use.

What You Get in the Box of 40

Forty colours is the sweet spot. You get both temperatures of the colours that matter, which is the real secret to believable light and shadow, plus the earths and greys that keep realism from looking cartoonish.

It is the same archival Luminance as the biggest boxes: ASTM D-6901 rated lightfastness, 3.8mm creamy permanent leads and FSC certified cedar barrels. Add the Portrait Box of 20 and you have a serious portrait kit.

Colours in the Box of 40

All 40 colours by number and name, as published for this set. Every colour is also sold on its own, so note the numbers of your favourites for top ups.

Caran d'Ache occasionally updates set assortments, so the colours in your box may vary slightly from this list.

The Caran d'Ache Difference: Swiss Made Since 1915

Caran d'Ache has made drawing tools in Geneva for more than a century, and they still make them the slow way, in their own Swiss workshops at Thônex just outside the city. Not outsourced, not rebadged, not made wherever is cheapest this year. Every Luminance pencil is designed and made in Switzerland, from the pigment-rich lead to the FSC certified cedar that wraps it.

It is still a family company too. The Hübscher family has led Caran d'Ache since the 1930s, and today Carole Hübscher runs it as the fourth generation. That continuity is why the quality does not wobble from batch to batch. The Luminance pencil you buy this year lays down exactly like the one you bought five years ago, which matters when you are matching colours across a body of work.

This is the company that launched Prismalo in 1931, the world's first watercolour pencil, so coloured pencils are not a side line for them, they are the whole point. Luminance is their flagship, the pencil they put their name to for professional, archival work. We have stocked Caran d'Ache at Art Shed Brisbane for years, and Luminance is the pencil our coloured pencil artists save up for.

Why Professional Artists Choose Luminance

• Lightfastness you can prove. Made to ASTM D-6901 with every colour rated LFI or LFII. Your originals and commissions keep their colour.
• A lead that does the work. Creamy and pigment rich, so colour goes down in fewer layers and burnishes to a painterly finish.
• Colour you can find again. Every barrel matches its lead and carries the colour name and number, so reordering is easy.
• Responsibly made. FSC certified cedar, designed and made in Switzerland.
• Open stock. Every colour is sold individually, so your box never has to run out.

Getting the Most Out of Luminance

Build in thin layers, then burnish. Luminance takes many layers if you start light.

Use a Caran d'Ache pencil blender to fuse colours in small areas, and keep your sharpest point for final detail.

Browse more coloured pencil sets, all our pencil sets, or the full Caran d'Ache range.

Questions About the Caran d'Ache Luminance 6901 Box of 40