Review: Sennelier Extra Soft Pastels and Sennelier Soft Pastel Card

So I had my Unison pastels and my Mungyo pastels. I wasn't intending to buy any more soft pastel sticks for a while...until I saw the Sennelier 30 half-stick set go on sale at Jackson's Art. It was the Plein Air Landscape set, which had the kind of colours I would typically use. I resisted for about 5 minutes, then caved and ordered it.

This is the Sennelier Plein Air Landscape 30 half-stick set. Plein Air simply means painting outdoors in French and is used to denote a style of painting where you go outside and paint what you see, versus painting indoors in a studio with a pre-arranged setting.

I paid about S$45 (about US$31) for this set, which is a terrific deal as Sennelier from France is one of the big pastel brands, dating all the way back to the early 1900s. Sennelier reportedly sold paints to many of the big artists, such as Cezanne and Gauguin, and even created the first professional grade oil pastels for Picasso.

I just adore opening a new set of pastels - they always look so gorgeous in the box, before you take them out and get colours muddied everywhere. I also prefer getting half sticks because you get double the number of colours in a box for the same price as full sticks, which is great if you like trying different things.

And because I was trying out Sennelier, I decided to use the one sheet of Sennelier Soft Pastel Card that came in the Jackson's Art sanded paper sampler pack. It's a very gritty 360gsm paper - coarser than anything I've tried so far.

I decided to draw an eagle. First, I blocked in the background. Immediately, I realised that the coarseness of the paper was not a great match for the softness of the pastel. A tip: very soft pastels are not ideal for underpaintings because the pigment lays down so easily that it fills up the tooth very quickly. What this means is that you will find it difficult to put down subsequent layers later. Artists usually use harder pastels underneath and the softest pastels for the final layers. 

The Sennelier pastels are extremely soft (softer than Unison) - so soft that the moment they touch the paper, the pigment goes on, so I had to use a VERY light hand. This is the point of the drawing where it usually looks like a preschooler scribbled everything in!

Because of how sandy the paper is, blending was quite a challenge. This was after blending the first two layers and as you can see, there are still obvious gaps and harsh lines.

So I had to lay down a third layer of colour and blend like mad. By this point, I noticed a couple of things: first, the pigment level of these pastels is the bomb. What looked like a red brown pastel gave way to that rich and lush deep red hue in the background. I absolutely love it. But the pastels also stain like crazy. See that red ink-like stain on my finger? That was AFTER scrubbing with soap and water.

Then as always, I started on the eagle by drawing the eye. To me, eyes reveal the soul of the animal - if I can get the eye right, half the battle is won. To fully test out the Sennelier soft pastels, I didn't want to use any other soft pastel sticks from my Unison or Mungyo sets, which limited the colours I could use. However, I used pastel pencils for the eye and some of the feather details because it's next to impossible trying to draw details with the ultra soft Sennelier pastels.

 

And finally, the finished painting. The feathers didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but I'm pleased with the head of the eagle and the background.

Final thoughts

Sennelier Soft Pastel Card

Among the sanded paper I've tried, this is the one I'm the least fond of. It's far too gritty, like drawing on sandpaper which gives a very rough texture. It's also difficult to move the pastel around, so blending, especially the initial layers, is tough. The only good thing about this paper is that it grips the pastels well, so you don't need to spray a fixative over it.

Sennelier Extra Soft Pastels

These pastels are the softest I've tried. You have to handle them very carefully as they can crumble easily. The advantage of being so soft is that the pigment is absolutely brilliant. The white is as white can be, and all the colours look like you've place them under a saturation filter. Loud and bold. 

But, and this is a personal preference, they're too soft for me. Very soft pastels are just not as versatile because they're not ideal for underlayers, which I like to do. They're best for the final layers, which makes them quite limiting in my books, because I'll need to use them in conjunction with other pastels. I also do a lot of details in my final layers, in which case I can't use the Sennelier pastels anyway.

The pastels are also inconsistent in quality. Some go on very smoothly, especially the light colours, while some of the darker ones, like the deep brown, go on scratchy and chalky. A separate mention of the box, which annoys me. Most other pastel boxes come with a lid, making it easy to store the pastels away. The Sennelier set comes in an open box that has to be slid into a snug cardboard sleeve with flaps. That's rather inconvenient and inaccessible. Would it have killed them to provide a lid?

And finally, these pastels create a heck of a lot of dust. I'd placed a sheet of paper under my easel when drawing and the amount of pastel dust gathered after that would rival that in a haunted house on a deserted island. Ok, I exaggerate but you get the picture. While pastels nowadays are formulated to be non-toxic, it doesn't mean that they won't affect your respiratory system and cause you to cough. I was joking to my daughter that if they open up my lungs, they'll be purple and green. It also gets everywhere - on your desk, your floor, all your surrounding items. My floor now feels perpetually sandy, thanks to all pastel drawings I've been doing.

For these reasons, I probably won't be reaching for the Sennelier pastels very much. Glad I got them in a sale. Not that they're bad, of course, but it really depends on your own preferences and your style of painting. The Unison pastels are still my favourite to date, as they straddle the perfect balance of softness and control. I talked about them in my review. 

However, being the pastel addict that I am currently, I doubt these will be the last pastels I'm trying. Thank goodness the Christmas season is coming soon - I know what I'll be putting on my wishlist! 

You can buy Sennelier pastels from Jackson's Art. If you use my referral link, I'll get a few points.

Afternote: I have since grown to love the Sennelier pastels, so I guess tastes can change! I now use them in most of my pastel paintings.