Rembrandt vs. Decorating chalks

Cheap chalks will never be as fine a quality as expensive pastels. It just doesn't work out that way.

 

Rembrandt pastels are excellent quality, very soft and intense. They come in over 300 colors / tones.

Here is a thread the describes different types of pastels and other materials people use on their faceups.

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108998

 

Decorating chalks are intended for scrapbooking. While I don't believe there is any oil in them, I also don't know how high a quality they are. Generally in art supplies you pay for pigment. The more pigment, the less filler; the less filler, the more smooth and intense the color. If this set of chalks was comparable in price to Rembrandt then they are probably comparable in quality. If not, not.

 

I was checking out a couple brands of loose chalks in an art store the other day. Simple testing, running the edge of one along a slip of test paper (put there by the store, btw, for that purpose), or along my finger edge. I saw a definite difference in the fineness of the trail left by the Rembrandt sticks, the smoothness and softness. I guess that's why they were the most expensive!

 

Piggybacking here. Does it take much of the pastel to do a faceup? Ive seen a set of pastels that i like but they are half sticks. Is it better to get full sticks or half sticks ok?

 

Are they very soft pastels or the harder rectangular sticks? The harder sticks will take more brushing, scraping-off, whatever method you use.

But no, it takes very little to do a face. You're just dusting them on. Even layered, it takes very little. Most of your waste will be if you scrape a lot onto a sheet of paper each time you use the color. I can't give you an idea by number of faces, but will tell you that I still have a collection of sticks from when I used to do pastel artwork, and my sticks were used for over 25 pastel "paintings", average size about 18" x 12", and I still have 75-90% of the sticks!

Hope that helps!

 

They are little rectangular sticks. Thanks for replying.

 

I will say this: the cheap pastels are very good for adding to the more expensive ones to get a subtle color variation or to tone down a rich color. So I have both.

 

I use this, and Pan Pastels.