They are bold, strong, and good value for money. Appealing for both starting artists and established pastellists. Jackson’s handmade pastels are a force to be reckoned with. I’m sure Jacksons will keep expanding their range over the coming years. Seasoned artists would crave more greys, darks, earths, and cool, desaturated colours (extremely useful in shadow work). The Jacksons pastel colour range is mid-sized (200 colours) and biased towards high chroma colours. This is not a distraction for myself, it’s just a different pastel with different characteristics.
These compounds produce a different ‘release’ and ‘glide’, as the pastel stick transits across the drawing surface. This may affect artists who like to use featherweight mark-making. To produce the same mark in comparison to other pastels I had to apply a hint of more pressure. The colours are very dense and their construction is robust. I proceeded to remove them all so I could really grasp the hues. As soon as I received them I noticed the paper jackets are actually rather big. That is until now, that I got my hands on a good number of these pastel sticks. I have been using various brands of pastels for the past number of years, but I had never discovered Jackson’s own brand. Here, they share their thoughts on their texture, pigment density, and mark-making possibilities.Ībove image: A drawing by Jenny Bloomfield, made during a walk from Boggle Hole to Ravenscar, North Yorkshire. Throughout April, we asked three soft pastel artists to try Jackson’s Handmade Soft Pastels.