101 Guide to Buying Soft Pastels

I wrote this post because when I first ventured into the colourful world of soft pastels, I was overwhelmed by the sheer variety and basically followed the YouTube artists who inspired me - whatever they used, I bought.

Now this approach is perfectly fine, of course, and very quickly, I grew my pastel collection and discovered for myself what worked for me. However, pastels, especially good quality ones, don't come cheap and if you have a limited budget, you won't want to waste your hard-earned cash on something that you might not like. Hence this post - hopefully to help you better figure out which pastels will most likely suit your style of painting, and optimise your chances of loving them. 

Super Quick Overview

I'm not going to go into great detail of what soft pastels are. If you're on this page, you probably already know at least a little. These are essentially pieces of pigment mixed with binder. They're like paints except they're in dry form. Some people call them chalk but they usually have no chalk in them. They've been around for a long time, and legendary artists have used them, including Degas and Picasso.

Spectrum of Softness

The term "soft pastels" is a bit of a misnomer because they actually come in a wide range of softness, and funnily enough, hard pastels fall under this broad category as well. Just to clarify any confusion, "pastels" is often used interchangeably with "soft pastels", and I think the latter was concocted simply to differentiate the medium from oil pastels (which I love too). 

I will explain why knowing the softness level of each brand of soft pastel is important later on. Below, I've arranged the brands of soft pastels I've tried into five levels of softness with swatches, with Level 1 being the softest and Level 5 the hardest, with their corresponding swatches. They are:

1) Schmincke/Sennelier 2) Unison 3) Mungyo Gallery Handmade/ Jack Richeson Signature/ Koh-I-Noor Soft 4) Prismacolor NuPastel 5) Pastel Pencils - Stabilo Carbothello and Faber-Castell Pitt. (The links are to my reviews of each specific brand).

I have grouped some different pastel brands together in one level, eg. Level 1 and Level 3. There are slight difference among the brands within those levels but in my opinion, they're too slight to be significant in terms of performance. Eg. within Level 5, the Carbothello is softer than the Faber-Castel Pitt but for simplicity's sake, I'm grouping them together.

Please note that this comparison is only based on the pastels I own and have personally used. There are obviously many other brands not listed here. The ones above are also all artist grade pastels, meaning they're reasonably lightfast (will not fade over time). I didn't test student-grade pastels.

How does a Pastel's Softness Affect the Painting? 

Some people think the softer the pastel, the better it is, kinda like a softer teddy bear is more cuddly. That's not true. A pastel's softness is not just aesthetic or whether it's nice to the touch. How soft a pastel is will affect not just the overall look and feel of your final painting, but also the way you use it.

Pigment

Generally, the softer a pastel is, it means that it has more pigment and fewer binders added to it. That's why the softest pastels tend to be the most expensive (pure pigment is insanely pricey). What this translates to on paper is that the colours will tend to be brightest and most saturated. An early mistake I made when I was using pastel pencils was wondering why the colour didn't pop. I kept trying to add more colour but it remained dull. That's because pastel pencils, on the hardest end of the spectrum, won't give you vivid colours. I didn't know that I should have layered a softer pastel on top to get the bright accent I wanted.

I've swatched the different whites using the pastel brands as above. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo but the softest pastels have the brightest whites. If you want a bright white highlight, the Sennelier white is one of the brightest I've found. You can never achieve that level of white with a pastel pencil.

Ability to layer

The softer the pastel, the faster it fills up the tooth of the paper. What this means is that you'll quickly find that you're unable to pile on more layers of pastel if you use only the softest pastels. As a rule, soft goes on top of hard, not the other way around. In other words, you should use the hardest pastels for the earliest stage of your painting and gradually layer the softer pastels on top, leaving the very softest pastels for the finishing touches. 

One of the common complaints I hear, and something I learned through experience as well, is attempting to draw details using pastel pencils after a few layers of soft pastels. Instead of adding colour, the pastel pencils often just scratch off the existing layer of pastels. That's because pastel pencils are on the hard end of the softness spectrum and don't layer well on top of softer pastels.

Note: Paper matters as well. If you're planning to use unsanded paper, it may be better to stick to harder pastels as unsanded paper has less tooth and you won't be able to get many layers with softer pastels. If you're working with very soft pastels, either use sanded paper or paint lighter and fewer layers. You can read my post on unsanded paper alternatives for pastels.

Broad strokes vs details

The softest pastels are also the creamiest and crumbliest. Some of them are so soft that they crumble or break when you simply apply more pressure. Hence, these aren't great for drawing details as it's hard to keep any sort of sharp edge on them. But they're terrific for making broad sweeping strokes, something that harder pastels would fail at.

Your Style Affects your Softness Preference

I can't stress this point enough. Too many people just go by trial and error, or like a specific pastel, and then argue vehemently that one brand is better than another, as if it's the gospel truth. What works for you may not work for someone else. Even seasoned artists don't all agree on what's "best". One artist can swear by one type or brand of pastels, another can hate it. 

In my case, the first pastel artist I followed was Jason Morgan. He uses primarily pastel pencils, especially Carbothello, so I bought a set of that and loved it. 

An early animal portrait I did using pastel pencils

Then I watched Emma Colbert and she uses Unison pastels, so I tried that and loved it too but I found it frustrating to get details with them. In my first time trying Unison pastels, I had to revert to pastel pencils for the lion when I discovered that pastel pencils couldn't layer on top of soft pastels.

And then I grew curious about landscape and watched Alain Picard, who dislikes pastel pencils, and uses mostly the very soft pastel sticks and NuPastels. Then I watched Susan Jenkins who too, mostly uses very soft pastel sticks.

An attempt at landscape using very soft pastels

The thing to note is that NONE OF THEM ARE WRONG. I have discovered that their preferences are largely influenced by their type of painting and style, as the softness level of pastels tends to give you certain types of effects, as explained in the previous section. This was a bit of a Eureka moment for me, because when I saw the correlation, I realised that preferences are not random. You can more or less guess what someone will like depending on their style. Of course it's not an exact science, but it helps.

What do I mean? Well, Jason Morgan is a wildlife artist who likes realism. He aims to get the details of each animal down to the whisker. It's not surprising then that he doesn't like very soft pastels. For that level of detail, you need pastel pencils. No other soft pastel can give you that amount of control. Emma Colbert paints realistic animals too, but not at the level of detail Jason Morgan goes into. She prefers a softer look, hence Unison sticks suit her. Not too soft, but enough to give that soft fur feel (coupled with Velour paper), and she uses a few pastel pencils to sharpen the edges.

Both Alain Picard and Susan Jenkins paint mostly landscapes in a looser, impressionistic style - broad strokes rather specific details. Hence, they love the very soft pastels that create bold colour and can make big marks with.

In addition, most pastel artists don't just use one type of pastels. Most of them use a combination for underpaintings, main painting and details. But again, if you understand how the pastels work, you'll get why certain artists love specific combinations. Since Alain Picard uses very soft pastels, he likes NuPastels for the underpaintings, which makes sense since NuPastels are harder and would be easy to layer on top of. In addition, NuPastels have sharp edges which he can use if he wants to add some details. Pastel pencils are harder than NuPastels but almost nobody buys pastel pencils for underpaintings, they would take forever to cover large areas.

For Jason Morgan who uses primarily pastel pencils, which is on the far end of the hardness scale, it's hard to find anything harder than that to do underpaintings (otherwise the pastel pencils won't be able to layer on top), so he uses a hard medium like Conte sticks (which aren't actually pastels but compressed graphite and charcoal) or PanPastels.

At this point, I need to make a special mention of PanPastels. These are really unusual because they come in a pan, like watercolour paints, instead of in a stick or pencil. They're difficult to rank in a spectrum because in terms of softness, they're as soft as can be, practically powder. However, because of the form they come in, they don't typically perform the same way as very soft pastel sticks, eg. they don't layer well on top of other pastels or give off vivid hues. They're especially suited for underpaintings, and are the exception in the soft pastel family in that they play well with all other pastel types.

What does this mean for you?

Well, if I can summarise it very simplistically, if you like to draw details, go for pastels on the harder end of the softness scale. If you like a more painterly look, go for pastels on the softer end. If you're undecided, any of those in Level 3 (a popular equivalent brand is Rembrandt) straddles the best of both worlds, though you might be a little frustrated that they're not perfect for either vivid colour or fine detail.

And then if you're looking to supplement your pastels to give it more range, consider what you would need. Do you want something for details? For highlights and accents? For underpaintings? For underpaintings, you need something harder than the main pastels you're using. The good thing about underpaintings is that you're not even limited to pastels. Susan Jenkins has done underpaintings using paints and other mediums. But if that's too complicated for you and you want something versatile, try PanPastels. They're expensive but the large pans last forever and they're very forgiving in that you can layer over them easily.

In conclusion, your style affects what you'll like. Of course, you're not limited to one style. If you're a chameleon like me who loves to experiment with different styles and subjects depending on your mood, you just need to plan accordingly. If I'm going to draw an animal portrait with lots of details, I'll stick to pastel pencils and use PanPastels for the underpainting. If I want to paint a landscape or more impressionistic animals, I'll use softer pastels and maybe add NuPastels for the details. 

Soft pastels on Canson Mi-Teintes

Mixing and matching is wonderful and perfectly fine - pastels are incredibly versatile. There are no hard and fast rules, but you make the most of it if you understand how the medium works.  

You can buy all these art supplies from Jackson's Art. If you use my referral link, I'll get a few points.