Soft Pastels vs Pastel Pencils: What's the Difference? 

Thank you!

Thank you! Me too :-)

Haha, there is no bad taste in art supplies I think. Any good quality pastels work great, just different for different styles. Enjoy those Schminckes, I have an artist friend who has an enormous collection of them and loves them!

Emma Colbert Art I have a few Unison sticks that I am going to keep using, I might or might not replace them, I just liked the range of the Schmincke and the Sennelier were just to brittle, I think that I personally do better with consistent supplies and I had trouble using so many different brands, you have so many wonderful videos, thanks for sharing your expertise and joy in working with pastels!

So are the scmincke similar to the rembrandt by any chance? I mean if you tried the rembrandt. Due to reviews i was planning on schmincke but got a unused 2nd hand set of rembrandt off etsy….and its just 30 sticks so i might still try schmincke.. my impression is its more like chalk than i figured pastels would be. Maybe im remembering oil pastel…. Whatever blends the best regarding creating mixed colors.

Yes...dirty face, dirty light switches and door handles...and you can forget clean fingernails!

Enjoy your pastel pencils in the meantime! They are wonderful too and you can learn lots about pastel from just them.

blend!

Hi, yes the Schmincke pastels are a little too soft for my liking. I'm not sure where you're based but there are many brands similar to the softness of the Unisons. Mount Vision, Art Spectrum, Terry Ludwig (a tad softer maybe) Richeson. If you're in the US, try Dakota Pastels online as they stock a great range of brands. They have a chart of soft to hard at www.dakotapastels.com/files/pdfs/hardness2021-chart.pdf I would disagree about Sennelier and avoid those if you find the Schminckes too soft. Hope that helps!

@EmmaColbertArt thank you for reply. Iam in New Zealand

Yes I do use some Faber Castell harder sticks, mainly black in my lower layers when adding large areas of darkness. But then it's more the softer sticks built up in layers.

Yes I think so. The harder the pigment is the less vibrance it will have and the longer it takes to fill the paper.

I replied on another video but I will paste it here also :-) Your English is great. This is quite confusing to everyone. Soft pastel is the medium I use. There is 'soft pastel' and 'oil pastel'. The soft pastels don't contain any oil, they are mostly pigment and a binder. The better quality soft pastels have high pigment content. The soft pastels feel dry to use while the oil pastels are sticky. But within the 'soft pastel' range they go from quite hard sticks to really soft sticks. I hope that makes sense!

Here is a link to them on Jacksons. I should really start calling them what they're called on their site! I think they refer to them as crayons. www.jacksonsart.com/faber-castell-pitt-monochrome-crayon-burnt-black-soft?___store=jacksonsart_en&acc=087408522c31eeb1f982bc0eaf81d35f

I haven't tried it but in my experience the soft pastels don't mix well with oil pastel products. The two mix very differently and I think they're best kept separate. I could be wrong!

They can remind you a bit of chalk. They will sound scratchy if you use a rough surface. The softer the pastel, the less scratchy and use a smooth surface.

Yes I do a lot of drawing with charcoal, more sketchy and I enjoy building up the tones in greyscale. Most charcoal is not as pigmented and dark as black pastel however, but some charcoal pencils are pretty dark. I like willow charcoal when I sketch as it's lighter grey and very smudgy!

@@EmmaColbertArt Great! Hope I can see your charcoal drawings too

Contés are harder than the bigger sticks. Somewhere in between the pencils and the soft sticks. So yes they're useful too, but I still love the softness of the bigger sticks for my strength of colour.

Emma Colbert Art Thanks so much for your insight! I love your passion and clear explanations!

but if i think about it... it's not the lack of vibrance that bothers me... the pitt pastels are all more on the earth side and i really like that... but the yellows can't even cover the pastelmat fully... you always see some paper through... ....maybe i should use white paper... 🤔

You're just never going to get yellow pastel pencil to look really vibrant in comparison to soft pastel no matter what the brand. Caran d'Ache might be a bit better than FC as they're slightly softer. But the yellow comparison in this video shows the difference when compared to soft pastel. White paper will help your yellow pencil look brighter though.

Yes I have tried them and do make use of them sometimes in lower layers. Personally I just love using the sticks and turn to them for most of what I need when it comes to blocking in. But I can definitely recommend them in combination with the rest.

I use mostly Faber Castell Pitt pencils but also like Caran d'Ache and Carbothellos

Hi Jorge, I use both Hahnemuhle Velour and Pastelmat. You can learn a little about the velour I use at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nqyhf4BNf2s.html

@@EmmaColbertArt Thank you very much Emma for your time in responding. I love your drawings. That is good. Thank you....

Charcoal is a bit different. Soft pastel is pigment like what is used in wet paint, only it's mixed with a little binder and rolled into a stick. The colours are really pure and vibrant

You can but it depends on what paper you're using as to how well they apply. I use them on top of the softer pastel marks to shape and add definition.

@LoveRescectHappiness In this video she uses the pencils on top of both kinds of sticks - the semi-soft Faber and the fatter, super soft Unison. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dI5VL9QR84Q.html

How could you tell?? haha

Hi Dave, that's a topic I haven't covered. May be one to think about doing discussing the toxicity of pastels. Some good ideas there thank you!

Haha! Dirty hands = busy person. People also know you're a real artist in the local shop when you don't realise you've rubbed it down your face before washing your hands to go to the shop.