Christmas Gift Art Challenge 3 - Unison 30 Starter Half Stick Pastel Set

This is part 3 and the last of my personal challenge of creating an artwork using each of art supplies I received for Christmas. So, presenting my very first painting of 2021!

But first, the gift: This is the Unison starter set with an assortment of 30 colours in half sticks. I'm not new to Unison, having previously tried the Emma Colbert 16 half stick animal set and loved it. This set is a good complement to the Emma Colbert set which is predominatly browns with a few tints and shadow shades.

Here's a closeup look at the yummilicious colours:

Since the challenge is to just use this set and nothing else to supplement it, I had to think about the painting I wanted to do. Since it has quite a few blues, reds and yellows, I picked this reference photo from Pixabay.

Photo: Sponchia

New year, new beginnings - I decided to make the painting more fantastical by giving it a Van Gogh sky. This took quite a bit of adjustment because the Unison set didn't have a bright mid-blue or a bright chrome yellow, so I had to make do.

Drawing that eye was a huge challenge - it's hard to get precise lines with those fat pastel sticks.

I gave the giraffe a red tone, again based on the colours available in the box, since there is no orange. In the shadow areas in the neck, I thought I would try out some greens, since there were a few greens in the box. But all that did was make the giraffe look dirty. I've given up trying to use green on animals - they never seem to work for me.

So I decided to use blue instead and that worked much better. Luckily there's a dark blue in that set. Finally, I added a few other blue marks throughout the giraffe to try and unify the painting...and it's done! You can see the pastels are pretty grubby by the time a painting is complete.

I'm quite happy with it, especially since it was using a limited palette. Unison pastels are top notch - they're probably my favourite. They're firm enough not to crumble easily or leave patchy marks like Sennelier and Schmincke, yet soft enough to make very vibrant marks. The pigmentation is fantastic. For beginners, I always recommend buying the half sticks. You can twice the number of colours for the same price, and they will last you a very long time anyway. I don't forsee myself ever finishing any of my pastels.

By the way, this painting was done on UART 600 paper. It's a nice even grit, not too coarse and will take a reasonable number of layers.

If you're interested, you can read about my other two Christmas Gift Art Challenges:

1) Faber-Castell Polychromos 36 Coloured Pencils 

2) Faber-Castell 36 Pitt Pastel Pencils