Drawing Sticks

28 February 2013

sticks

Faber Castell are my favourite pastel sticks, just the right semi-hard consistency. Can be used for light delicate shading, or bold rich colours. Very controllable, but getting harder to find; they seem to be cutting back on their colour range. The Contés are very hard, and are good for delicate work, like light shadows. Cretacolors are hard, but some colours tend to glaze up when used on fabric, which is not so handy. The Gallery Mungyo pastels are called semi-hard, but are actually quite soft, so must be used carefully for delicate work. The soft pastels, Rembrandt, Art Spectrum, and Roymac, are really good for broad, rich colours, but not much else.

Of the pastel pencils, the Stabilo CarbOthellos are by far the best in every way. The Contés are very good, and the Derwents, although good, do glaze up in some colours on fabric. For graphite I’ll stick to the Franchevilles, much richer than the Derwents for the same grade. My charcoal pencil of choice is the peelable General (soft); no wasted charcoal, line thickness variable by adjusting the pencil angle. Conté charcoal sticks good for broad areas of black. But the Conté Pierre Noire pencils are simply wonderful; rich, velvety, controllable.

Kneadable eraser for when things go awry, or need holding back; blu-tac is good for this, too.