Have you ever spent hours on a piece of artwork, only to watch it fade over time? It’s a frustrating reality for many artists, and it all comes down to something called ‘lightfastness’ – a medium’s resistance to fading over time when exposed to light. If you want your work to last, choosing supplies with good lightfast ratings is essential.
But how do we know which art supplies will hold up over time? Some brands advertise their materials as “lightfast,” but do their claims hold up in real-world conditions? That’s exactly what I set out to test. Over the past 6 months, I’ve exposed swatches of coloured pencils and markers to sunlight and tracked their changes. I also compared my results to industry-standard lightfastness tests to see how different brands truly perform.