While watercolor remains my favorite media, I truly enjoy soft pastels. Choosing the right kind of pastels could truly be challenging and downright intimidating. When I go to our local art store, I usually have easily 15+ brands and hundreds of colors, hues, sizes and softness levels to choose from. I will try and review some brands I have come across and give you my honest opinion.
Michael's Brand:
My first ever set of pastels was the Artist set from Michael's. Its their house brand and with a coupon it cost me no more than $5. I'll be honest with you, I still have some sticks sitting around somewhere but I never ever use them anymore. I wish I could say that its a great set for beginners, but it just isn't decent quality. The sticks are uneven, often with air pockets and cracks. As a result, they crumble unexpectedly or sometimes have hard scratchy pieces inside that prevent even and smooth application and leave you frustrated.
Conclusion: I would not buy this for a serious painting purpose. It will fit the bill for some rough sketching if your budget is tight, but when you switch to a better quality pastel set, you realize what you've missed.
Prismacalor NuPastel Sticks:
Prismacolor makes a great selection of art products and these sticks are not an exception. I have been using these for some time now and I really enjoy their hardness. If I ever need to make a hard line or give something a good edge, these do the job perfectly. Generally I also use these for an under painting where more color will be applied on top and I don't want to fill in the tooth of the paper too much prematurely.
Conclusion: Its a great product while its not very expensive. A small set is usually enough to start with, something like 10-12 colors. I would rather add softer pastels in larger variety to this set than get a giant set of these sticks. Price is about $25.
The Mount Vision Pastel Company:
Currently this is the set I use the most. when I was new to this, I went to a local art store and stared at boxes and boxes and drawers and displays of hundreds of pastel sticks. I was confused and ready to leave and do more research when someone approached me and happened to know a few things about pastels. The nice young man helped me choose a set suitable for my tastes and purpose. This set included 50 sticks of large semi-soft pastel sticks in "landscape assortment". When I started using these is when I realized what I was missing up to that point. The pigment was of perfect consistency and flowed off the stick on to the surface like I was painting with oil, without getting crumbly. I also got to like the carefully selected colors in this set and at first I was kicking myself for not getting a larger set but then I realized that the limited pallet kept me focused and allowed me to achieve better results because I focused on the value and not color.
Conclusion: A professional set like this is a game changer. It allows you to create without obstacles and results in better looking work. The only setback is the price. A 50 piece set could cost up to $130.
