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Pastel
Sticks
Pastel Pencil Brands
Page Two
Derwent Pastel Pencils and Pastel sticks, come from the largest UK manufacturer of pencils. The range is constantly being improved and during 2010, a new formula version of the pastel pencils was launched, replacing the previous formula.
There are some new colours and some renumbering and re-
I used to find the old design (top image) rather hard and also some colours were often ‘gritty’ and I tended to favour other brands like Faber Castell Pitt and Swan Stabilo Carbothello for artwork.
The new formula pencils are softer and certainly much smoother.
They are capable of a good point with a sharp craft blade and whilst the finer points are just as liable to break as before when working fine detail, this is a common problem with all pastel pencils, no matter what the brand.
You could say it is the nature of the ‘beast’!
There are 72 colours in the full set -
the name of each colour is shown on the pencil.
One advantage of the Derwent range ( and also the Faber-
These types of stick pastel are harder than the traditional soft pastels and are therefore less messy when handling the bare material in the stick, but they also enable larger pictures to be worked with the sticks being used to lay down the foundation and the pencils can then establish the detail later.
Derwent also supply a colourless blender pastel stick in the box of 36 sticks which I have not seen retailed before.
They also retail a holder to make the use of the sticks much cleaner
The Derwent pastel blends well on the working surface and the relative hardness of the medium ensures that there is less dust than with soft pastels. The pencils accept most pastel techniques that I have tried, and the new formula pencils earn a high mark in the comparison stakes.
A great improvement on the old design.
Prices are around the £1 a pencil mark depending on where you get them from. If
you are shopping, I would recommend that you by-
The new ones are very much better.
Stockists will be quite easy to find in the UK
-
Faber-
The performance is reliable and the pastel medium smooth to apply and blend.
As you would expect with products from a worldwide supplier, the quality is excellent, and the individual colours are available to refill boxes from several Internet sources as well as mail order companies.
The full colour set of pencils (60) is more than adequate for most subjects and anyone who finds the range constricting, can use the sticks first and then develop the detail later with the pencils. The pencils in my stock carry a reference number and lightfastness ratings but not a name.
An advantage for those familiar with Polychromos oil based Coloured Pencils is that the colours of the 120 set of sticks are the same.
The Lightfastness values are marked on the pencils in the Faber-
This gives an indication of the most and least stable colours. Most are graded 3
stars -
Both the pencils and the sticks are water soluble and good opaque colour can be lifted off the sticks and used with a brush. Solvents like Tim Fisher’s Soft Pastel Liquifier also work well with the stick medium, (see techniques)
Pencil cost is around £1.25 each
Stockists range from the SAA & Great Art to many Internet sites
Made in Austria, this double range of pencils and pastel sticks offers a selection of 72 colours, with the pencils and what they call ‘Pastel Carre’ sticks, matching. This makes them one of the largest colour ranges available in the UK for Pastel Pencils. Each pencil clearly carries the colour name and a reference number
The medium is firm like the other brands, and the pencils will take sharpening with a sharpener well, though any machine that applies too much vibration may well damage the pastel structure.
Cretacolor say ‘The Cretacolor Pastel Pencils are best sharpened using sandpaper. The pencils are made with a soft wood outer casing cutting out the need for machine sharpeners or craft knives’
The pencils are available from Bob Elcock (follow link below and see Techniques section)
in singles and sets -
A reliable brand, they handle well and are a good option.
I would expect the pigments -
Bob Elcock also markets his own tutorial packs with pencils, working paper and DVDs. See Bob’s website for full details at http://elcockpastelpencils.com/
Sets and individual Pencils are also available from Truro Arts
and Carre Pastels individually and in sets, are available from Great Art.
With a slightly thicker colour strip than some other brands, these pencils have a dry crunchy charcoal feel which is unique among the pastel pencil brands.
They sharpen and respond well to the usual techniques.
There is a colour range of 60 colours and the lightfastness rating is given on each pencil according to a star system which allocates 1 star to the lowest rated colours and three stars to the best level of lightfastness.
No colour name is given, but pencils carry a reference number.
Like most brands they are watersoluble.
Price is around £1 to £1.20 a pencil in sets and they are widely available on the Internet from the likes of Great Art and ArtDiscount.co.uk
The Carbothello sharpen to a fine reliable point and I have found them good for fine finishing detail
This Netherlands firm is part of the Japanese Sakura Group ( as is the Royal Dutch Talens art materials business ).
Bruynzeel were taken over by Sakura in 1997 and I understand the manufacture of Bruynzeel products is now sourced outside Holland. However the quality is fully up to modern artist’s requirements, and the Pastel Pencils are of high quality though reasonable cost.
The range extends to 48 colours which are marketed in very attractive foam lined drawer boxes ( as shown )
The full set of 48 offers a very useful choice of colours. The pencils are best sharpened with a knife, though can be sharpened with a power sharpener with care. Each pencil is numbered on the coloured end. No colour name is given and this can be a problem when looking at a choice between two or three dark brown /grey pencils
Suppliers in the UK are (2010 ) not widely found, but a search on the Internet under ‘Bruynzeel Pastel Pencils’ should bring up suppliers at about £50 for the 48 drawer set.
Sakura were the inventors of Oil pastel crayons in 1924 developing the CrayPas brand of pastel crayon to take advantage of the best points of the two media. CrayPas is an interesting product which is also still available, sold as an Oil Pastel for children’s use, it is priced around £15 for a set of 36 colours.
Pastels go back to the 14th Century as a manufactured artists material and Conté a Paris refined pastels to the type we know today around the late 1700s.
As a very old manufacturer in this field, the pastel pencils that are offered by Conté are unique in the hardness and thickness of the colour strip. The company offer a range of 48 pencils in the full set and suppliers include http://www.pencils4artists.co.uk/
I find the pencils a little too hard compared with other brands, but that is a personal
feeling -
The tins of pencils are usually marketed at around £1 each per pencil
So a set of 48 would retail around £50
Pastel Liquifier
Spray bottle
from Tim Fisher
From another part of the Sakura Group and also based in Holland is the Royal Talens company. They manufacture Van Gogh soft pastels which have a long history and the company still produce pastels and also pastel pencils. I have used the soft pastels (the ones I have are a very old formula and are slightly harder than many manufacturers)
I have not yet tried the pastel pencils which are available from the Royal Talens sources in the UK including iartsupplies.co.uk in Scotland.
There are 45 colours listed in the full range.
I see quoted prices are higher than other brands
at around £1.75 to £2 each pencil.
Van Gogh always prided themselves on the use of lightfast pigments but I have no information on the pastel pencil lightfastness. I would expect them to be very good, though without trying them I cannot say whether they are worth the premium price
If you are aware of other brands of Artists Quality Pastel Pencils on sale in the United Kingdom (or Europe) which you feel should be included in this list , please contact me with details and comments.
A Brand not readily found in the UK, but fairly easily found throughout mainland Europe, so included here.
Pencils have been manufactured by the Hardtmuth firm in the Czech Republic since the late 1800s and their ‘Gioconda’ pastel pencils are high quality at a reasonable price.
Martina, my correspondent from Germany tells me:
I find them wonderful to work with. They are very soft and smooth to apply on nearly every surface. They only have a small colour chart of 48 but these colours are good and you can mix and blend them easily.
Colourchart: -
http://www.koh-
The lightfastness ranges between very good and excellent and the colours are bright and clear.They are very easy to sharpen, even with battery operated sharpeners (Panasonic and Maped) and break very seldom.
You can buy them in sets of 12, 24, and 48 pencils in a tin and also in open stock and they are very cheap. I pay for 48 pencils about 36 Euros (for Germany www.adelja.de with very fair prices)
Latest revision July 2011
PASTEL PENCILS
Pastel Pencils -
Pastel Pencil SURFACES. Pastel Pencil TECHNIQUES.
Pastel Pencil LANDSCAPES -
CARAN D’ACHE
January 2012
Caran d’Ache have not previously featured in this page as they had not marketed a
competitor to the principal Pastel Pencil brands of Derwent, Faber-
In the early part of 2011, I was approached to try out a new Pastel Pencil line being developed in Geneva which would include a matching hard pastel stick made with the same material as the pencil core.
By the time the test was completed, 84 colours were in production and most were available in basic unlabled stock for testing.
I have not seen the finished product, and I have not yet seen the exact naming of the colours used in the test.
On what I have seen so far, the Pastel Pencils and the sticks ( Caran d’Ache call them ‘cubes’ ) are very good.
They are smooth to the touch and sharpen well.
I have been able to test the samples with some of my students and the consensus is
that the pencils will prove to be well worth buying -
The full range will be marketed in sets and in addition to the usual mixed colour
choices, there will be at least two dedicated colour ranges -
I don’t know the colours they intend to include in the smaller sets, but I found the colour range very comprehensive when I did my test using most of the 84 colours. The trial involved a landscape picture from a reference photo which Caran d’Ache selected, and was completed on a grit paper over a period of about 5 weeks.
I will post a more useful comment later when the pencils have been launched and are on sale, so that I can assess the value when comparing quality against price.