Soft Pastels & Pastel Pencil Reviews & Articles
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Pastel brands
Soft pastels | A guide for beginnersHave you always wanted to give the soft pastels a go but unsure what you will need to start out, this helpful article offers you lots of information.
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Unison Soft PastelsUnison pastels are one of the finest, soft pastel ranges available and they blend extremely well. There is very little binder, so the pastels are more vibrant, due to the pure pigments found in the ingredients.
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Faber Castell | PITT Pastel Pencils
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Stabilo Carbothello | Pastel PencilsThese pastel pencils offer 60 vibrant colours and would make a great addition to the colour palette of any pastellist. Find out more about this range.
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Prismacolor | NupastelsThese pastels feature rich, creamy pigments that allow for easy blending and shading. Perfect for creating illustrations or drawings, these pastels can be sharpened to a fine point for detailed work or dulled for full coverage.
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Derwent | Pastel PencilsThese pencils have a unique highly pigmented fine chalk texture which creates a beautiful laydown of soft colour and are easy to blend. These pencils can be used dry or with water to create light washes. Find out more about these pencils.
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Papers & Canvas boards for Pastels
Art Spectrum | ColourfixArt Spectrum® Colourfix™ Papers are sheets of acid-free, 300gsm hot pressed watercolour paper with a fine, deep tooth. It is a superb surface for pastels, oils, acrylics, inks, oil pastels, gouache, watercolours and dry media such as charcoal and pencils. Available in 20 lightfast colours.
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Art Spectrum | Colourfix smoothFor anyone who is a fan of the Colourfix paper, did you know that Art Spectrum also offer a smooth surface version too? Find out more about the Colourfix Smooth, compare between other surfaces and see where you can buy yours.
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Ampersand | Pastelbord
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Canson Mi-tientes | TouchA highly innovative and unique surface - this versatile, finely textured paper is perfect for pastel, charcoal, pencil, & acrylic artists and suitable for both dry and wet media techniques.
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Clairfontaine | PastelmatThis paper is held in high esteem, especially among pastel artists. In this article we analyse the performance features in depth and explore its capabilities when used with other mediums like; coloured pencils, watercolours, oil pastels, charcoal, acrylics and mixed media.
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UArt | Dark sanded paperThis dark sanded paper by UArt is ideal for soft pastels and other mediums such as pencil. In this article we review the paper using coloured pencils. We will extend this article soon.
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12 popular black papers for artistsDuring our search for the 12 black surfaces in this article, we found many more, with companies producing their own ranges, in varying shades of black and different textures. The following article provides you with a selection of the most popular brands, including some lesser known.
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Tim Fisher | Fisher 400Developed by Tim Fisher specifically for painting with pastels. The paper has no surface pattern, which can otherwise show through, on your painting, and it will take layer after layer of pastel. Suitable for both fine, detailed work and also for more impressionistic painting. It is also very good for mixed media.
ARTICLE TO FOLLOW.
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Accessories for pastel artists
Ghiant | Transfer sprayThe perfect way to transfer outlines with less mess and wastage than carbon sheets. A popular product among artists. Find out how it compares.
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Sharpening pencilsThis article gives lots of information about different types of sharpeners as well as explanations on how they can play a huge part in your art techniques too.
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Pencil storage chestFinding suitable storage for your pencils and pens can be difficult, so when we came across this pencil chest made by 'Creations by Rod', we wrote an article about it. They make 24 unique designs including the pencil chest, which are aimed at the creative market.
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Loxley FixativeRead our blog for some hints and tips on when to use a fixative, how to apply and why you should never use hairspray as a cheap alternative. Pencil artist Karen M Berisford also explains how fixative plays an important part in her own pencil work.
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Lumi LED task lightIn our latest blog post, artist Karen M Berisford discusses her search for a new studio light that provides bright, natural light for close-up work and balanced coverage when working on larger portraits. She turns to The Daylight Company to find the solution.
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10 blending products for soft pastelsDo you work with soft pastels or relatively new to the medium and require guidance? Have you found a particularly efficient way to mix soft pastels? Did you know that there are many ways to blend pastels? In this article, we provide a list of 10 blending tools that will assist you in your work.
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Why not try one of our tutorials for soft pastel artists
If you are completely new to soft pastels, why not try one of our tutorials which will show you, in great detail and explanation, how to create any of the subjects below by following the directions beneath each progress image, you will learn how to to build up your base layers and create fine details to aid realism in your work. If you are new to acrylics, you may wish to start with the 'Beginners' tutorials, work through the 'All artists' ones and then go on to the 'Intermediate' tutorials which are more challenging.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
